In Moonshadows, a rise of the guardians fanfic

In Moonshadows

remthedogsitter

Summary: Jack / Pitch post movie. It begins when Jack begins to think Pitch might not be as evil as they all believe him to be. A run through dreams memories and old ghosts, not heavy on their relationship yet but the prequel to a fic that will be. Notes: First let me say it's a little messy. I watched the movie Sunday night and have been writing like a maniac the day after for the past three days, "chapters" are sort of short but the whole text is here, complete and no more waiting for chapters. My take on the lore of the book series, where Pitch was actually a good guy, the protector of the Guardians and he is as old as the Man in the Moon if not older. The only reason he is the way he is was his loneliness and sadness and the fearlings that finally drove him mad. This fic is my attempt at getting people to understand the poor guy who was nothing but rejected and pushed aside in the movie. (for the shippers out there, a sequel will focus more on their relationship this is more of a get together of sorts) Also, as my first post on AO3 I'm not sure how the autoformatting has affected the story especially in terms of italics but this fic is in proper formatting on under the same title and the same user name. Cheers! - Rem

12/10/12 UPDATE FORMATTING (MORE OR LESS) FIXED

Prelude: After the Storm

They sat there together on the Ice Sculpture they created together, though it was by accident, this meeting was purposeful. The sat beneath the night sky and waited, the sculpture beneath them catching moon beams and glowing.

Awkwardly, their hands were carelessly touching and they looked up, waiting for the meteor shower to begin.

From the Beginning:

When everything was said and done, Jack would still fall to his old ways and sit on the tops of snow covered cliffs at the edge of the world. These were the slow days when there weren't children to play with or Guardian "duties" to attend to. He just is. Right now. Himself.

Perhaps years ago he would spend this time sulking and nursing a small ache of numbness in his chest, the few times he allowed himself to feel loneliness and time he spent shouting, baying, questioning the moon. After everything though, everything left a sort of contentment, he knew his place, who he was and who he is and even something close to having a family, but... there was something missing.

For the first time, his thoughts went back to Pitch as the sculpture of black and ice came into view. The scene plays as clear as the day

I do know what it's like to be cast out, to not be believed in! To long for... a family... All those years in the shadows, I thought no one else knows what this feels like... but now I see I was wrong...

You... We don't have to be alone Jack.

Something curls up in his chest a little painfully, that was true. He was the only one in this whole wide world that could even say he knew what the other man felt... and he left him. There was no forgiving the mayhem the other caused but there was no ignoring that pain either. He was not wholly evil, that was his nature of course... right?

Jack looks up at the moon, his brows furrow, questioning. I don't even know the first thing about him.

"Moon." His voice is firm. "I'm going to help him."

The Man in the Moon does not react for a moment before shimmering a little, his sign of approval but Jack is already riding the wind with a new determination in his eyes.

Chapter 1

Jack drifts into Tooth's palace after his visit to (Sandy) and almost immediately mini-fairies came to greet him, pausing from their regular routes to collect children's teeth. He smiled and greeted them as he went through to the center isle where Tooth was busy directing mini fairies as well as preparing for her own run tonight.

"Jack!" She greeted him immediately when she spotted him and he waved back in greeting as she came up to him.

"Hey Tooth" he tried his best to smile without looking too suspicious. "I was wondering if I could look around a little? Maybe reacquaint myself with my memories a little more..." He decided to act a little sheepish and embarassed, looking away and scratching the back of his neck and fiddling with his staff.

"Sure Sure, anything for you Jack just help yourself and try not to get into any trouble." She said flying upwards. "I'm late for my run but Baby Tooth can help you!" And in a blink she's off, giddy as a little girl looking forward to the night ahead.

He greets Baby Tooth and the little fairy flys around his head and chirping little sounds of approval, they haven't seen each other in a while. He leads her to a more secluded part of the Palace and explains why he's here.

"Baby Tooth, do you trust me?" He looks at her small form hovering just a few feet away from his face.

Her eyes slit a little, regarding him but she nods.

"Listen, it may sound crazy but... I want to help Pitch-"

Almost immediatelyshe goes berserk, flying around his head and emitting a headache enducing high pitched noise which he understands as lecturing. He's forced to catch her in his hands to calm her.

"Not like that Baby Tooth, the whole evil thing but something else." She feebly wiggled in his grasp, his cold had that effect on her. "Remember the day he broke my staff?" She paused, remembering the conversation between the two and their volatile energies mixing and melding till it finally settled into a grand sculpture. It was the first time Pitch almost seemed human, with his sentiments of loneliness and family. "I don't think he's evil. At least not completely, it's just... what I'm trying to say is maybe if he wasn't lonely he'd be ok. Maybe he's forgotten and needs to remember... like me. I came here to find his memories, could you help me?"

Baby Tooth nods solemnly, understanding her friend. He loosens his grip and she flies off, leading him to where they keep all the older memories, feeling inside her the location of Pitch's past. They come to a wall lined with the boxes of children but much much older, the gold was slightly faded and some vines began to grow but eveything was still visible. The floated upwards until they came to the last tier, one box missing, its place in the wall looked like it had been scratched or clawed out maybe centuries, eons ago. Jack's breathing stilled, the marks were stained with old blood and a little bit of shadowy ash that could only be Pitch.

Chapter 2

Did you know him Sandy?

His little friend sat next to him, their legs danggling off the side of the building. Out of the three other guardians, Sandy seemed like the only one he could trust in this matter. Even though Pitch and Sandy seemed like mortal enemies, Sandy was the most objective and level headed of all of them.

In the wordless language of his he mused that Pitch wasn't always this way. He was different Eons ago, even before he became the first guardian that man Pitch was the closest thing you could call a guardian. Pitch defeated fearlings, the shadows of doubts and fears or at least that was what Sandy had heard. He repeats it was a long time ago, perhaps Pitch chose to be evil was the only explanation, turning against everything he was said to have protected.

You think we can help him Sandy?

I would like to think no one is beyond help but even he sounds like a lost case.

I can try.

Yes, maybe you're the best out of all of us that may have a chance. Sandy smiled at him.

Jack drifted around the town, wondering what happened and where Pitch's memories were but in the end there was only one option: he would have to see Pitch himself.

He remembered the entrance to those labyrinths of shadows and he looked down the hole surrounded by bits of broken wood. He took a deep breath, twirling his staff a little and he jumped. Everything was darker than he remembered, the copy of the globe was the only thing that glowed, lightly touching the empty cages that littered the underground space.

He dragged his staff absently behind him, a trail of thin ice in case he got lost. There was a small noise that echoed off the walls, a cross between breathing, pleading and very quiet groans. Cautiously he approached, not sure what to expect.

There was Pitch, huddled in a corner, the nightmare horses surrounded him but made no move to attack him. Nightmares instead were content to be close and feed off Pitch's fear. Pitch himself was surrounded in a thin coat of shadows but they were more concentrated in the center of his chest and even in the dim light there was a small glint, a glint that Jack could only describe as gold.

Immediately he sprang between the Pitch and the beasts, sending out a pulse of ice that froze the ones in front of him back into Sandy's glimmering sand. Jack looked pleased that he sent them scurying but the victory was short lived when he saw Pitch curled up on the floor clawing at his chest and the shadows there swallowed again the small piece Jack had seen earlier.

"Pitch." he called, his voice sounding louder than he intended in this silent space but the other didn't stop his convulsing and clawing until Jack tentatively touched his shoulder and uttered. "Pitch, stop."

That was enough, the Nightmare King blanched almost immediately and fell unconscious, the shadows around him seemingly sucked into his chest.

Chapter 3

Jack lay Pitch as gently as he could against a snowbank before he set to work. This was the place where the black and silver statue stood proudly as it caught the sun's rays at day break and the moon's beam at night time as if it were the son of night and day. Jack wasn't sure why he chose this location to hide but it seemed far away from everything and everyone to hide his unexpected convalescent.

Jack and his staff worked into the next hours to fashion a sort of hideaway they could use. He built around the sculputure until he was satisfied, a circular bungalow that in his head could be a beginning of a spiral tower if he chose to expand later, maybe he could ask North if he could work a portal from here to his home in the lake.

He carried the still unconscious Pitch inside (definetely much lighter and paler than before), though it was a structure made purely of ice he understood enough about igloos to know how to keep it bearble inside. Without much else Jack layed the man down on a nest of blankets and cloths and buddled him as much as he could manage, he wasn't sure if weather affected him but it was best not to take chances.

This was one of the cental rooms with several openings for escape and the rest of the structure was fashioned like the maze he was lost in before in Pitch's lair only a little more playful with the ice returning mismatched reflections.

Jack made himself comfortable where Pitch lay sleeping and decided to pass the time with a nap himself.

Running through a dark corider, a prison with walls lined with bars and grotesque arms reaching out.

Daddy! Daddy!

Running. I'm coming!

Daddy! Dad-

A door opens.

Blood.

"Wake up!" almost immediately Pitch is tossed out of his dream and just a few metres away hunched over him is Jack's face contorted with concern... concern?

"Fancy seeing you here Jack." His voice cracked from being unused for so long. His attempt at banter was cut short when he felt the wave of weakness flow through him, even colder than Jack was the loneliness of the phrase 'the boggeyman doesn't exist!' uttered by a child somewhere in the world. He hides it, Jack notices but doesn't comment.

Jack woke when Pitch's nightmares stirred and sent the man into a clawing fit again, only when the shadows receeded did he notice the fabric of the other's shirt had been torn away almost in the same fashion the gap in Tooth's palace was. He was missing something certainly, maybe Pitch's memory box was inside him?

"What do I owe the pleasure of being in your house then Jack Frost?" Pitch managed but still didn't dare attempt to sit up. His tone gave the impression of wanting to stand equal to if not above the boy that was scrutinizing him quite intently now. He hated the self righteousness all those other Guardians oozed but it wasn't evident in this boy... not quite.

"To help you." Jack said simply and shrugged, pulling away from the man's line of vision and stroking his staff that rested on his lap.

Pitch's expression settled into surprise, quite the surprise indeed that he willed his body to roll over to his side so he could look at the boy across of him.

"No, not in your conquest to destroy all hope as we know it but... you. Simply help you."

"Did you fall out of the sky and hit your head Jack or do I just knock all the sense out of you with my presence?" First being 'kidnapped' and now Jack claims to want to help him after all those battles and refusal before. Why now after being nothing but enemies?

"I mean, without the schemes and the monsters and the shadows... who are you really Pitch?" Jack began to sound much more sensible, or at least appear to. "I doubt anyone is truly evil or..." the boy's voice is down to a whisper. "Or is it all just something to validate your existence?"

Pitch didn't notice his hand was shaking as it absently rested above his own heart, his eloquence had left him, the question of who are youhung heavily in the air. Up until this point he refused to try to remember the past, where ever instance of a "before time" was convoluted in a screaming shadow, the shadow he believed was his own black heart full or corridors and a girl screaming for her daddy.

Jack's eyes widened at how the shadows that were supposed to protect Pitch began to tear at him in the same urgency the man had hours ago in that labyrinth and Pitch himself didn't seem to be aware, topaz eyes indicating his mind was indeed far far away.

Jack stuck his staff on the wall and the air shivered with frost and cracked towards the man cocooned in blankets, not to hurt but an attempt to discourage the shadows even if they seemed to be coming from the man himself. The noise brough Pitch back to the present, the shadows settled creeping back into their hole.

The younger boy knew this was going to be difficult but he could have never imagined this.

Chapter 4

Pitch looked tired. His yellow eyes have lost some of its shimmer, he propped himself against the wall. The Jack and Pitch simply stared at the space between not really sure where to begin.

"I still don't understand why you want to help me, you are a guardian after all." The Nightmare king recovered some of his strength but he was still wasn't close to what he had been years ago when he faced the four guardians.

"Believe it's a whim if it makes you feel better." Jack shrugs, conversation seems to keep going back to this and no amount of convincing seemed enough.

Pitch is quiet for a moment and looks outside the small window, the sun was just beginning to set. "How do you propose you do this then Jack? I doubt beating it out of me will help." he said in good humor unsure of where all this was really going.

"Then tell me about the past." Jack said lowering his voice a little. "Everything. Anything. Whatever you remember."

Pitch's mouth fell into a tight line. "I don't see how this is going to help me or you Jack. Why are you so interested?"

"Because... I think I only knew myself when I opened my memory box. It proves there was something before me, a purpose, a family it was who I was before I became who I am." Jack shrugs. "If you can make sense of that."

Pitch understood too well what that meant, half of him still regrets giving Jack back the box but at the same time there was relief that his only kindred soul in this world found what he yearned for all these years. But he wasn't that selfless, sometimes he would wonder why he didn't try harder then at least he and Jack could have each other then he would get angry. Why Jack. Why Jack and not him.

"I think it's inside you, you know. Your memory box." Jack says quietly, wanting only Pitch to be able to hear. "But you don't want to remembe-"

"What would you know!" Pitch suddenly stood, he swayed a little but sustained his stance and almost immediately there was the sound of horse hooves rushing towards the room. The suddeness caused Jack to pause and just watch the other man mount one of the Nightmares that had cornered him earlier like a mouse. In the same breath, Pitch was gone and warm blankets in the corner the only proof he had that the other had even been here.

Chapter 5

Jack was tireless in his quest, often prone to stalking the Nightmare King from his perch in a tree that over looked the entrance to his home. At first they would fight, spare until he was frozen or until they were both too exhausted to care. After weeks they settled like this, Pitch not acknowledging his presence but allowing him to follow as he roamed the dark streets of new cities every night with his nightmares.

The frost spirit was determined but never neglected his nature and played during the day when Pitch was prone to resting or sleeping away from the light.

"Will you let me in now Pitch?" the were in a fairly large deserted city part under a lampost.

Pitch paused from his walk, one hand entangled in the mane of a Nightmare, an old comfort even though he no longer needed the support. The Nightmare king sighed in defeat "If you will leave me alone afterwards. One chance." he muttered low already wanting to rid himself of the unwanted companionship, the eyes that followed him wherever he went, judging, calculating like a haunt.

"Take your shirt off." Jack said as he drifted from the lampost he was perched on.

"If you want to get into my pants Jack it would have been faster if you just asked." Pitch furrowed his brows at the odd request.

"Not that, I just want to see something."

"If you promise to leave me alone."

"I promise."

Pitch slipped off his shirt and true enough there were old scars over lapping with new that littered his chest, especially around the center area that was somehow free from scar tissue. That had to be the center Jack concluded. "Don't move."

The frost spirit cautiously stepped closer, exageratting his movements as if to show a wild animal he meant no harm. Pitch looked at him still unsure of what the other was trying to accomplish.

But the moment he made contact with that small patch of skin, the two were immediately engulfed by the shadows.

When Jack opened his eyes he was falling but it did not feel like falling. It was like he was falling into the sky and all the constellations around him danced and swayed and laughed. A golden commet dashed through the air and golden soldier were about catching dark shadows that looked like nightmares into cages. Some distance away there was a chariot of gold and a man was there looking at the events below and again at the constellations above.

"Hello..." small voice said next to him, he did not know when or if he landed on solid ground or why he was on his feet until a little girl with long black called his attention next to him.

"Hello there little girl what's your name?" He smiled and bent down to see her eye to eye but no sooner had he done so her eyes went wide as she took his hand, pulling him to follow her. Confused he gave in but as they stumbled away he looked back to see the whole scene melting, being engulfed by a bigger shadow and the small ones that had been caugth were being freed from their cages. The shadows laughed and bayed and swallowed the sky as it attempted to follow them but they dove safe he hoped into a threshhold.

They ran into a corridor and almost immediately Jack recognized the cavern. This was Pitch's lair only much brighter and shadow hid in the cages, mangled limbs sticking out attempting to pull in anyone who drew close enough. They were all whispering at the same time creating the most dreadful hum of inhorent words.

Daddy! The girl would try to shout out over the noise when in the distance the man from earlier that stood above the battle passed into the room of never ending stairs but somehow he caught a glimpse of a golden door at the end. He could not hear her and she was already in tears next to Jack.

Jack carried her away from that room full of cages and she told him "You have to save Daddy ok? He cant hear me anymore, get help and save him ok? Please Mr. Jack..." she sobbed and held onto his shirt. "You have to wake up. Wake up please. Wake up..."

The frost spirit bolted awake, frantically searching around and all he could see was a richly colored golden sand. Sandy was hovering above him looking at him worriedly, his breathing was still coming in heaves before he could will himself to calm down.

"He doesn't remember." He breathed out. "Pitch doesn't remember his past life and the shadows hid his memory box inside him." He shook his head trying to clear the haze out. "I have to go back..." was the only thing he knew and there was a fuzzy memory of a crying little girl.

Jack's thin frame shook a little from the intial shock back into wakefulness but he recovered his composure.

"Sandy, how did I get here?" He was too steeped in worry to really admire Sandy's palace made of sand and all sorts of creatures drifting around him.

It seemed Sandy had found him passed out where he was with Pitch but the Nightmare King was nowhere to be found.

"Is there a way I can back there Sandy? Into the dream I mean." Jack held his staff in both hands, the feeling of urgency already taking over him.

Sandy tried to reason with him a little in his silent language but he soon saw it was hopeless. You can dream and find your way back.Was the only thing he offered and an open palm full of sand. Jack nodded and thanked him before falling back against the bed hewas currently tucked in, his staff held close to his body like a lifeline.

Chapter 6

He was in his own dreams now, it was the night he woke up and the moon told him his name. He picked up the staff, the night was cold and everything he touched splintered and bloomed with frost. The village was here somewhere but this was not the place he wanted to visit. He closed his eyes and concentrated, somewhere out there was a link to the door that connected all dreams (even if there wasn't it was his dream and if he believed in it enough, the door would create itself).

There was something weird about this dream, maybe it was something Sandy did that now as he walked he passed frames that showed snatches of his past, his life before being a guardian. There was a lot of snow in those frames and lots of dark nights that seemed to meld into one long playing silence. Then there was meeting the Guardians for the first time because his blizzards disrupted his work and another when they kidnapped him in a sack and another where they were all together for a party which happened long after the defeat of Pitch.

His stomach turned when he came upon the memory of creating that scupture of dark sand and ice, how their gazes challenged each other then the snap of his staff. The tower was here in the dreamspace, at the end of the corrider and he touched it, hoping this was what would take him back to Pitch.

There was a flash of light and it took a few moments for his eyes to adjust. He was in a forest and in sight was a meadow, two figures were farther off, a tall figure that lifted up a laughing little girl. The details were so crisp and clear in the spring sun but almost immediately blurred and specks of black bled into the scene and it shattered. Jack raised his staff, ready to defend himself but the ground fell under him and he fell deeper into the dreamstate.

Things became more garbled, the shadow creatures from before squirmed and moved on the walls.

"Over here!" it was a small voice and Jack recognized it, it was the little girl and he ran in that direction immediately. She took his hand and led him though a small hole on the floor. He sqeaked when he lost his footing, sliding down what seemed to be a chute.

They landed on something soft, Jack sat up to see they were on a bed in a child's room, sunlight coming through a circular window they were maybe a few floors up from the ground. There was a sound coming from downstairs, banging on the door and scratching.

The little girl was hugging her knees in the corner of the bed. "I want my Daddy."

"We have to get out of here" his head darted too and fro thinking about his options for escape but the little girl just shook her head.

"We're safe here. They cant get inside."

The frost spirit paused, willing himself to calm down when he realized he could see her breath in the air and the thin layer of frost forming on the wood of the four poster bed.

"If Daddy remembers where he left me maybe we could all go home." she muttered into her knees. "He told me to hide here till he comes back but..." she sniffed. "He can't here me and opens the door that lets all the monsters out."

Realization hits Jack, the years have been good to him though he his spirit was very much a child, the part of him that aged understood. "How about lets play a game huh? It's hide and seek! I'll find your daddy but you need to be brave and defend the fort ok?" He gave her his best smile and her wide eyes stared at him in wonder like he actually believed him and that was all he needed. "Where do youthink he's hiding?"

She stood up and went around the room but coming around again and pointing under the bed. "To get out just think about going somewhere else. I think he's there though, he doesn't go too far from the door."

He nodded and inched his way off the bed. "I need you to count to 100, can you do that for me? And no peeking!" he knew it wasn't exactly hide and seek but it was the best he could do given the circumstance. She nodded "I promise!" and covered his eyes and started counting.

Chapter 7

Jack stumbled in the dark again, he was starting to hate the way his stomach was now confused which direction was up. It was a corridor, similar to the his own, but the frames of memories were blotched and blurred and there was the man that if you tilt you head just right and squint your eyes was like the Pitch Black they all knew with his smug air and proud gait. His shoulder's were slumped, hair a mess and every step he seemed to drag his feet. He coughed. His voice sounded hoarse. "Where are you little one?" was the only coherent mutter that Jack heard.

The more recent frames were clearer, the battle with the guardians, corrupting the first of what would become his Nightmares – then there was that door at then end of the hall. Deep inside Jack felt the danger that came from this door, calling, beckoning and stroking his darkest fears.

He ran to the Pitch but just fell through the figure like the night he was reborn and no one knew his name. Those dull yellow eyes staring at the direction of the door, hand reaching out as if trying to stop the door from leaving, Pitch staggered in his steps. It was there Jack saw the common memory in the snow they shared, maybe just maybe he could get through there and without thinking he lauched himself into the memory.

In the corner of his eye he could see the frame which he leapt through and through it there was Pitch making his way to the door.

The Pitch in the memory called to him

You... We don't have to be alone Jack.

Was everything different now that it was through Pitch's view? Everything felt... desperate, an unexplainable sadness and in that moment he realized he had been alone of only 300 years but Pitch had been alone for almost an eternity. It was in that moment he understood the man that was smart enough to know the consequences of his actions and not care- there was nothing to care about after all. He looked at those topaz eyes now, an almost conflicting nature of them wanting to justify his need for companionship but at the same time tryin to satify his misdirected longing at being believed in by children by any means necessary. Better to be hated than ignored.He should have done this the first time, he should have understood.

Instead of raising his staff in hostility like he had done that day, he lowered it. "You're right. We dont have to be alone but we dont have to be together like this." He waved his hand, gesturingt he dark sand that quivered in the air, waiting, waiting for a stronger source of fear.

Pitch was confused, as if he too knew this memory by heart but was resigned the same infernal dance of rejection. Jack decided to bridge the gap and try to hug the man "I'm sorry. I should have understood." But the memory had already melted away and now he was in front of the door with the Pitch of the present looking beyond him to the door handle.

"She's in there. I have to get my little girl I promised!" he shouted moving to shove Jack out of his way but the frost spirit already enforced his stance with ice.

"She's not in there Pitch." He reasoned, hoping to get through in the same way he had with the Pitch in the past.

"Cant you hear her? She's calling for help!" Weakly he struggled against his bonds and for a moment Jack wondered why the other hadn't used his shadows yet. Jack indeed did hear something though, from behind the door, a low hissing and cackling. Jack looked behind him and recognized the door patter, similar to the memory box gold with colored patterns but what surprised him was that he could see through it. Inside there was a cage just as tall as himself and crammed inside was a fearling he had never seen before, it filled and pushed against the cage, Pitch's memory box was at it's center. It sneered and laughed and squirmed.

"Jack Froooost." It grinned. "You dare come here afraid?" Jack looked behind him the door was open and he had stepped through, leaving pitch just outside watching and pleading for his daughter. His staff was raised, small wisps of frost danced around his feet following an invisible breeze.

"Give it back to him." he said low.

"Oh, you dare make demands?" It laughed but the sound was like a mesh of barking and cracking. "I know your fears boy, the darkest ones you dont dare believe."

"A game." Jack shook his head when the shadows wisps touched him, trying to plant doubt in his mind. "Let's play a game for his memories. If I can withstand your illusionsyou will give me the box but if I surrender you can take the both of us." he emphasized the word illusion, more to convince himself but his heart bounced hard against the interior of his chest and his palms were wet against his staff.

"Don't make me laugh young one, I can already take the both of you if I wish." It swirled as if contemplating something, the gold box at it's center gently bobbing with each movement. "What I want is the girl. The key to this cage."

Jack's lips pressed tightly together, considering the new information. "How will I be sure you'll keep your end of the bargain?"

"You dont." the fearling's eyes rose out of it's shadowed form, peircing red and looking into the depths of its soul. "Very well, let's begin." The fearling's form morphed into a mould of Pitch Black, similar to the cloak of shadow the man would wear and settled into a sitting position on a throne made of black sand.

Chapter 8

"Nobody wants you Jack." Jack was on the ground staring up at the other guardians they were just outside North's home and they stared down at him with a mixture of disgust and regret. "We lied. The Man in the Moon never wanted you. It was all a joke see?" and they laughed and laughed and they turned and walked away. "No one will believe you anymore."

He felt globe growing dimmer with every second that passed, they were forgetting him and his soul felt as though it was being chipped away.

"No." he muttered clutching at himself, his staff was broken into in front of him. Who broke it again? He couldn't remember. He was on his knees watching the retreating figure of his friends and yet here he was paralyzed. "NO."

All the strength flowed through him, the blizzard began to rage and here her was in the eye of the storm, two hands pressing the staff's two pieces together. Snow and hail fell all around him the figures of the guardians shrouded in the storm. It felt like eternity like this, the wind was him and the wind was he as well as all the flakes of snow and bits of hail that grey to as big as elephants until his ragged breathing slowed.

He stood. Around him were the guardians, buried and frozen in the snow "what have you done Jack?"the frost spirit ran and ran. The remains of North's palace was broken wood, frozen elves and yetis and the globe laying on it's side, first flashed so brightly, everyone children and adult alike believed in him, fueled his anger and his blizzard and almost immediately the lights died. Flicked and turned black.

The world had frozen over.

Something in the back of his mind screamed Pitch! Find Pitch!He rode the wind, the location clear in his mind. He stopped however when he found the Nightmare King standing on a tall building, overlooking the frozen world.

"You killed them all Jack." he said not looking at the boy.

No. He didn't want to lose Pitch as well.

"Now there's no one left to believe in us. No one left to scare." In a daze Pitch walked off the edge and the wind wouldn't listen to Jack and it let the Nightmare King fall and disappear to a place he did not know.

Now. Now he was truly alone.

He crumbled to his knees for the second time that day and stared at his hands and his staff. Nothing. There was nothing left.

Until he felt something touch his shoulder. It was not Pitch exactly, this one looked much different, he gazed at him half crazed and half recognition. "No." was all Pitch said and immediately at unexplainable wartmth filled the frost spirit. This wasn't real. Not yet. Not ever.

He stood. This wasn't real. He reached out, extending his hand and trying to imagine the room with the cage and the small box he needed to retrieve. The illusion fell away with a mangled scream when his hand touched the gold.

He forced his breathing to steady as he pulled the box out, the shadows disappeared but he knew they were here somewhere, watching. He turned around, Pitch's hand was still on his shoulder, the torn expression still on his face not fully comprehending.

"This is yours." Jack said firmly, placing the box in the other man's hands.

Tentatively, Pitch's long fingers closed around it, unsure but with a longing he had not seen before. Some part of the Nightmare King remembered. They fell into his memories together.

Chapter 9

When he was alive his name was Kozmotis Pitchiner, he was a knight and a dragon slayer with only a daughter to love when his wife had died ing giving birth. They were happy in their forests and their fields and the old stone tower they lived in, a gift from the king. Until one day a dragon shadow came, his daughter was saved by him, a bite meant for her took him in her place but with his last breath he vanquished the demon with his sword under the light of the moon.

When he awoke his was a general, his name was Pitch Black, the keeper of the Guadians, the jailer of dark things. He did not remember his old life until much later and he held a photo of his little girl in a locket close to his heart. He was as old as the moon, entrusting him with the first guardian, the Sandman to care for and raise.

He stood tall and silent and proud and faced the fearlings for decades. But with each century he grew cold beneath the ground, in his dark kingdom filled with cages and shadows and whispers. They clawed at him made him doubt and slowly blurred the image of his little girl.

The largest fearling that had a room all to his own called, called and screamed in the voice of his little girl. "Daddy help!" "Daddy I'm so scared!" "Please Daddy let me out there are monsters here!"

It did not take much, the man inside was already rotting so the cage was opened. Fear stole into his heart. You'll be afraid. Afraid of the rest of your life because this ghost will eat your fear and then your soul. You dont fear enough!So he became the man that feared fear and only fear stronger than other could distract the shadows away.

It was only then, truly, he became the Nightmare King.

Then there was flashes of Jack, Pitch aside from the Moon was there to witness his birth and watch him stumble though the crowd.

Then the day in the snow We dont have to be aloneit was the true Pitch, the last bit that was still him beneath all that fear. If Jack did not know better, he could say there was longing and affection in that small glimmer of who the man actually was, the stoic knight that wanted to protect the world.

Jack turned to him and embraced him fiercely but they did not feel solid, they did not feel real in this place. The great Fearling loomed again, blotching this memory but Jack directed his staff towards it, a torrent of cold and ice forced it back forever into it's cage.

A door was there at the side of the room and a small voice "99... 100." the door opened and out peaked a little girl. "I found you!"

Pitch who had not yet let go of him stared at the door, recognition slowly forming.

"Go." Jack gently loosened the grip and pushed the other in the right direction. Pitch stumbled at first but recovered and ran to the doorway. You can look for me when you wake up.He wanted to say but that moment had already passed.

Chapter 10

Jack blinked awake slowly to the sound of voices mumbling around him.

"He's awake!" Tooth and Baby Tooth fused over him while Bunnymund looked to have a permanent scowl on his face.

"Well, thank you your Majesty for gracing us with your consciousness." he growled. "Blimey! What the hell we're you thinking going off on your own like and into Pitch's head no less? If I didn't know bettah I'd say you were mates with him! Our mortal enemy!" and the tirade went on but Jack blocked most of it out. A feeling of relief washed over him and Sandy shot him a smile when he caught his eye.

"Now Bunny I'm sure the boy-"

"Don't you go defending him North..."

Ahh, the sound of Home.

Epilogue

It took a few months before the other Guardians (at least Bunnymund) to come to terms with him helping Pitch and that their "enemy" wasn't what he seemed deep down inside. Sandy look relieved, North and Tooth were taking apart the situation logically and Bunny had yet to stop scowling. But things were quieting down again, Jack Frost was finally left to himself again without a chaperone and there was the beginning of winter to look forward to.

When his thoughts began to wander back to Pitch, they seemed to realize in front of him that under this full moon, in the flickering shadow of a street lamp, Pitch Black looked up at him. He had changed somewhere inside, he was calmer and his topaz eyes no longer held the sharpness and contempt it had before.

"Jack." in a tone he never heard before, so gentle and fearful at the same time as if even breathing would cause him to run away forever.

At the sound of his name everything he felt in the dream came back again Jack swallowed back tears when he collided with Pitch, arms wrapped tight around the older man. A small affirmation he was indeed real. For a minute the Nightmare King was dazed, the two selves of his past and present swirling and settling into one form, then he returned the affection, falling to his knees and burying his face in the crook of Jack's neck, one hand in the boy's hair and another around his waist. "Thank you."

There was no unexplainable fear anymore, well at least his own fear. Fear could never be destroyed but that did not mean it had to control you. Pitch was whole again and he was grounded here to the boy in his arms beneath the moon.