Chapter Five: Traitor

Jack is too pure, Katherine can tell – though Pitch has been using the Fearlings and the Nightmare Sand to manipulate him. Jack cannot become the Darkling Prince; if he truly succumbs to the darkness, he will join the ranks of the Fearlings, mindless and ravenous and fearsome.

Perhaps her own purity is what saved her—but maybe not. Maybe she was just lucky.

"Hey, Kat."

The nickname startles her, and she turns to see her new companion. Jack is leaning against a wall, tossing a snowball back and forth between his hands with a look of sheer boredom on his face.

She refuses to let them out to find Pitch—she will stay put until she receives further orders. Jack, in turn, seems to have odd ways of occupying himself.

Not that she can talk.

"Yes, Jack?" she asks, setting down the black book. The ink, her blood, pauses, the sentence unfinished.

"What does it mean?" he asks, and he looks at her now. She raises a brow.

"'It?'"

"What you said earlier—to the Guardians." Jack sits up straight, and Katherine notices something odd—his hair is a silvery gray rather than a snowy white. "You said you were the Darkling Princess. What exactly is a Darkling?"

Katherine blinks. She hadn't been expecting him to be so observant.

"I assume you know what it is Pitch does," she begins as she turns back to her book. "With the children he corrupts?"

"They turn into Fearlings. Yeah, I know." It must be Pitch's influence that keeps him from rejecting the idea—Jack Frost would never agree to work with Pitch if he knew that.

"Well, it's kind of the same thing. Except I'm not brainless and I have my own source of power. Kind of."

"Oh?" Jack blinks and leans in, his snowball forgotten on the ground and already beginning to melt. "Why? What is your source if it's not the same as Pitch's?"

Katherine frowns now—because she didn't expect Jack to be so curious, either. "Um… well, it's still derived from children's fear, in a way. But it's just not, uh, controlled by Pitch, I guess." What is it that he's searching for? "And—what do you mean, why?"

"Why aren't you a mindless henchman?" Jack asks, and a frown flickers across his face, as if he's hesitant to show it. "And – and, will… am I a Darkling?"

"No, you're not." Katherine shakes her head. "You're sort of in the process between a human and—uh, not one. Right now I can't tell if you're becoming a Fearling, a Darkling, or something else entirely."

Jack furrows his brow. "Then… how did you become a Darkling?"

"I don't know." Katherine shrugs. "Luck, I guess. But I'm not really sure if—"

A sudden screech silences the both of them; Katherine spins on her heel, her eyes wide as the goose she rides charges toward them. It squawks and bucks in a violent or perhaps angry manner, and Katherine narrows her eyes as she notices the Fearling on the top of her goose's head.

"Kailash, hold still!" she calls as she jumps onto the large bird, making her way to the Fearling and snatching it in her hands before it can try to run. She glares at it, examining it, never moving from Kailash as the goose calms down.

"What?" Jack calls up to her, unable to see what's in her hands. "What is it, Kat? You find something?"

It's so odd, she thinks. The only instances that she's seen a Fearling bleed the dark matter that it is composed of is when it gets into a brawl with a moonbeam. But how? How can that be? Whenever Pitch went out, he was always sure to block the Man—

She gasps in realization and releases the Fearling, which disintegrates almost immediately after she does. Could it be? Could it possibly be that they were…

"We need to go." She slides down Kailash's head and to her torso, glancing down at Jack. "Get on! We've got to go help Pitch!"

Jack furrows his brow in confusion – and she couldn't blame him, after she'd been so stubborn about it before – before he jumps up and joins her. "What's changed?" he asks her.

"No time to explain," she replies. "Kailash, skoree!"

Jack yelps as Kailash bursts into a run, and he grabs onto Katherine. "Whoa!" he cries as Kailash makes for the exit. And after a moment of adrenaline surging through his body, he chuckles and releases Katherine; but Katherine can't hold back a smile as she shakes her head.

If only this was as fun for her as it had once been.

Jack clings to the feathers of Katherine's goose—Kailash, he has learned her name is—as they fly through the air. "Can you see them yet?" he calls, leaning as far as he dares over one side of her. All he can see is the continent beneath them, with burning bright lights as they pass over crowded cities.

"No, I can't," Katherine replies, her eyes squinting as she peers into the horizon. "It's all too dark—the Fearlings are everywhere, I can't tell what they're surrounding…"

Jack frowns and glances around them. Fearlings, she says—but where? It's dark, yes, for there are storm clouds billowing across the sky in such a way that the stars aren't visible, but he can't see head nor tail of the creatures she's referring to. "Where?" he asks at last.

Jack feels useless, or perhaps vulnerable. Why can't he see the godforsaken things?

"Up there." Katherine gestures above them, to the sky. "Whenever Pitch doesn't want to be seen, he commands his Fearlings to cover the moon. They mesh together and form a solid cloud—as solid as clouds can get, I suppose—and block the Man in the Moon's vision. Usually it's just one or two clouds, but right now it's…"

It's a big one, all right. Jack gulps and presses a hand against Katherine's shoulder, as if for added comfort. Though he can't see it, she smiles at the gesture.

And then there's a light—a hole in the veil above them, through which a thin sliver of a moonbeam is sent down to the earth. "There they are!" Katherine shouts, but before Jack can inquire as to how she knows, Kailash is spiraling down to meet it; Jack yelps and releases Katherine as he grasps the goose for dear life.

They land in a spot of the woods, just a few hundred meters north of where the moonbeam landed. Katherine helps Jack off in a hurry, rushing through the woods; Jack follows after her, keeping close in case the Guardians are nearby.

Sure enough, when they arrive at the scene, Pitch is fending off the Guardians with armies of Fearlings at his side; but Jack can tell that something's wrong. What's wrong? Why…

Why is Pitch on the defensive, when he attacked them? What's—why is Pitch losing? He and Katherine had worn the Guardians down only hours ago. This isn't right; there's a piece missing that they can't see, making it impossible to complete the puzzle.

"He needs help," Jack says when Katherine does nothing. Hidden here in the foliage, invisible to those in the clearing before them – why doesn't she make a sneak attack? "Come on, Kat, what are you waiting for?"

"Be quiet, Jack," she almost snaps, and her tone makes Jack bristle. She won't answer his question.

Is she… a traitor?

"Kat," he tries again, and he grabs her arm. "Let's go."

She spins to him and sends a shocking punch to his stomach, knocking the wind out of him, before she kicks his legs out from underneath him. He yelps and groans, his head pounding from the contact with the ground. What in the world…? What was she doing?

His vision blurs as he stares up at Katherine, who in turn stares out at the clearing in front of them. He can't hear the battle—he's deafened, it seems, for the moment, and it hurts too much to get up. His eyes flutter closed, and he fights the unconscious as long as he can.

Then he feels a tug at his center, and it's as if the effect is gone; Katherine steps into the clearing and Jack scrambles to his feet.

He almost follows her, but looking out at where the battle had taken place, he sees that it's over. Pitch has fled, and the moon is starting to break through the clouds of fear above them.

He feels that tug again, like something's calling to him, but he refuses to heed it. Not until he sees what Katherine's doing.

She approaches the Guardians without hesitation or fear; she stops but a few meters away from the largest one, that North. And he gives her this look that might be remorse, but Jack can't tell from where he stands.

"Wait for me," Katherine says, and Jack's jaw drops. "You will wait, won't you?"

The Guardians glance to each other, and then Bunny steps up. "We don't exactly have a lot o' time to wait," he replies. "Katherine, we're short on numbers. We almost lost this round. If Pitch strikes again…"

"I'll try to delay him as best I can," Katherine says, and the blood underneath Jack's skin begins to boil. "You all must find the Sandman, however you can. Without him—and by that extension, without Jack—your fight truly is lost."

Jack can't listen to this anymore. The tug is still insistent, but again he ignores it as he picks up his staff and takes to the air, soaring over the village with the wind as his only companion – just as it used to be.

He needs to calm down. That, more than anything. He can't be telling Pitch of Katherine's betrayal with tears in his eyes and choking back sobs, like he feels like he's doing now. Where can he go? Is there somewhere that'll be good enough for him, that will help?

—The pond. Jack's eyes might have lit up at the thought of it in other circumstances. With everything that's been going on, he hasn't had a chance to return to it. Besides, the kids wouldn't mind another snow day.

"Wind," he says as he soars, hoping it doesn't notice the rawness of his voice, "take me home!"

The wind is only too happy to comply.

Elsa's Note: TAKE IT AH TAKE IT IT'S HOT HOT OFF THE PRESS HAHA. My beta has only just finished reading it. I love her to bits, btw. Crystal's helped me out with the ending so much I just uagh. I owe her so much. She's such a darling and without her, well, this story would suck a lot more. And by that I mean, more than it already does.

Anyway... please review? Comments and critique both welcome (I know I need it)!