Chemically Fixed Daydreams
"The cost of oblivious daydreaming was always this moment of return, the realignment with what had been before and now seemed a little worse. "
― Ian McEwan, Atonement

Chapter I

The first time Jack ever goes to a hospital, he is with his family. His older sister holds his right hand, smiling down at him, pointing out random things Jack didn't care about at the age of thirteen. His mother holds his other hand, her grip anxious as she kept her brown eyes trained towards her husband who was talking with the nurse about their family doctor-

"-Pitchiner. Is Dr. Kozmotis Pitchiner in?" Jack could hear his dad inquire. The man's face was pale and worried as he talks with the nurse and basically Jack's really just too tired to eavesdrop on the lady nurse and his father.

They were led to a small, cool office- Jack decided he likes this office- with a mahogany desk, not too-big windows, random instruments about, a comfy looking chair behind the desk and a golden plate with the name his dad inquired about earlier.

Kozmotis Pitchiner is a quiet, stiff man. Eyes sharp and golden, tall and imposing in Jack's opinion, and it takes all of his patience not to flinch at the cold and firm grasp the man had on his wrist, and Jack looks up and glares because he did not like this man. He did not like the way the other gives him a sad little smile, the way the golden eyes stares deeply into his own as though gouging out his soul-

Jack decided he hates Dr. Pitchiner and his quaint little office. Hates him for suddenly saying things Jack did not understand, hates him for suddenly making his sister go pale with a few words, for making his mom cry as he explained, and for making his dad look like he didn't want to come home anymore.

Jack decides he hates Dr. Pitchiner because he did not understand why the man and his family suddenly turn to him like that, their eyes going wide.

Jack hates Dr. Pitchiner and for good measure, the hospital too.

He does not want to come back again.

The second time Jack goes to the hospital, his father didn't come with them anymore. His mom says it's because his dad was working hard on something- Jack just stops listening there. He's more tired than before. It's just been a week since his last visit to the hospital and he has been going to school for the past week. Ms. Tooth, his kind teacher who wanted to be a dentist, was worried for him because he looked paler, and Jack had to promise her that he'll go and get another check up at the hospital.

Jack does not explain why it has to be at a hospital.

"He isn't eating well?" Dr. Pitchiner ask and Jack bites his lip as the older man takes his thin arms into his hands and examines him, tutting his tongue as though it displeases him to see Jack so thin and pale. Just like Hansel and Gretel's witch who ate little children. "We can strap him into an IV, have him confined in the hospital until further notice-"

"NO!" Jack speaks up for the first time and pulls away. He surprises his mother while his sister places a hand on his shoulder, trying to calm him. "I-I have school tomorrow. I promised Ms. Tooth I'd show up and Jamie and I were going to- to feed the class pet-"

"And I'm sure that would've been very nice. But the hospital's priority is your health. You should do as the doctor advices." The doctor says in a cool tone and Jack glares at the man. He reminds Jack of what he fears and hates, the bogeyman that lures children into a trap-

"Doc, if it's okay with you. We'll take Jack home for now." His sister speaks up and Jack looks up in adoration as his big sister winks down at him. "We'll take him back to the hospital if anymore symptoms come up. For now, I think it's for the best if he continues his daily routine, right?"

Pitchiner looks up, golden eyes calculating, and Jack has the urge to pull down his older sister and shield her from this boogeyman, but the doctor just waves a hand in nonchalance. "I will be waiting. But he is to immediately come back here if there's even a sign of fatigue."

"Yep!" Jack's sister says as she holds Jack's hand and smiles down at him. "Isn't that great Jack?" Nad Jack nods and laughs when he hears their mother sigh dramatically in the background. His sister ruffles his hair.

It's the last time Jack sees his sister smile.

"I'm sorry about your sister." No response as Pitchiner checks the charts and sighs. "I'm sure she's in a better place." Still nothing and Pitchiner looks at the small figure on the huge hospital bed, alone even in his private room.

This was understandable of course, the mother was mourning her eldest child who was in an accident last night. Pitch did not hear the full details: just that, it was a hit and run, and apparently the boy saw everything.

People died everyday, but it did not make it any less sad.

The old doctor sighed and he looked at his watch. It was his lunch break, he could spare a few minutes to keep the kid company while he was alone. He pulled up a guest chair and sat beside the small boy. He was thirteen, but he looked younger with the oversized hospital clothes around his thin figure and his brown hair unruly and framing his big brown eyes as he looked outside.

"Jack, that is your name right? It's short for Jackson?" Pitch tries to strike up a conversation. The boy says nothing and continues to look outside. "Jack, are you alright? Do you want anything? Some hot chocolate or-"

"Dad's name is short for 'man in the moon'." Jack suddenly speaks and Pitch's eyebrows rose.

"Pardon?"

"Dad's name's Manny. It's short for Man in the Moon." Jack continues as he looked outside, eyes unseeing lips forming a frown. "He doesn't talk much. The last time he spoke to me, he only says two words 'Jack Frost'. He was reading one of my sister's poems. She had a habit of making poems about me and Jack Frost because we had the same first name. She thought I was like him, we both liked pulling pranks."

"Jack-"

"Man in the Moon looks over the children from the sky. He doesn't say much but he's there." Jack continues to talk, still looking out of the window.

"Is that a story you play with your friends in school?" Pitch asks quietly and Jack turns to him with a small smile.

"Jamie helps me come up with it." Jack says simply as he lies down on his bed finally. "I miss my friends." He closes his eyes and says no more.

And Pitch knows, that this was Jack's way of saying that he was dismissed.

Jack isn't allowed to go home anymore.

His mother came in a few days after his sister's accident. She tells him that he can't go home anymore and that he had to stay here if he wanted to get better. Jack asks about his father but his mom says he is only too busy to visit. She explains that she too wouldn't be able to visit often.

She had to prepare for her daughter's funeral.

And she leaves Jack alone under the care of the bogeyman.

Pitchiner is a busy doctor, he is a family doctor to several patients. He only comes in to check on Jack and to show him the list of what he should eat. Sometimes the nurses brought Jack food, but Jack preferred to get food for himself from the cafeteria. He sometimes met interesting patient the same age as him and when they were feeling well, he'd invite them to play.

So here he was, walking towards the hospital's cafeteria. He was dragging his IV along with him like the other patients out for a walk, as he looked around for anyone to play with.

That's when he bumps into someone.

"Oi! Watch where yer goin' little ankle-biter!" Jack looks up startled and meets a pair of angry green eyes. He was an older man with an impressive tan, wearing a funny looking hat, some cargo pants, and a green navy shirt with sloppily printed kangaroos on the front.

Clearly a foreigner in Jack's small town.

"Yeh ain't gonna apologize you bloody show pony?" The old man huffed and Jack frowned up at the other.

"For what? You bumped into me!" Jack says in an indignant voice and the Australian-sounding man rolled his eyes as he gestured to his shirt. Jack looked and noticed that it had some unwanted red stains on it. The foreigner man seemed to have been carrying a plate of spaghetti, but the impact had it flying back to his shirt.

"Not my fault." Jack says stubbornly and the man scowls as Jack turns to drag himself back to his room.

Instead of finding a new friend, it seemed like Jack found an enemy.

The next time Jack comes out of his room, he bumps into a lost, sleepy-looking man.

The other man was wearing the same customary hospital get-up he was, meaning he was also a confined patient like Jack was.

"Hello." Jack says, eager to finally talk and befriend a patient from this hospital he hates so much. "Are you lost?"

The strange small man nods his head instead of answering Jack. And he holds up his finger as he mimed the numbers three, zero, and one.

"Three, zero, one? Three hundred one?" Jack asks and the other man with blonde hair and golden eyes nodded. "Oh! It's your room right? That's really close to mine. It's this way!"

Thanks to the situation, Jack had finally managed to strike up an unlikely friendship with this small blonde man who seemed to be somewhat of a foreigner as well.

After helping the older patient find his room, the other took a sketchpad and began to write down his name, introducing himself as 'Sandy'.

"Sandy, it's nice to meet you Sandy!" Jack says happily. It's the first time in a while since he's finally had a decent, although somewhat one-sided, conversation with another person. "I'm Jack! Jack Frost!"

The small man tilts his head as he wrote, Jack Frost?

The small kid flushes in guilt, "Actually it's Jackson Overland but I prefer Jack Frost. He's so much cooler than Jackson Overland!"

The other patient smiles as he writes, But I like Jackson Overland.

Jack flushes and scratches his nose. "Well, you're the first. Jackson Overland is sickly and thin and really no fun." He says as he crosses his arms.

Sandy chuckles at that as he writes, I'm sure that's not true. Does Jackson Overland have a sibling?

Jack deflates, "Yes."

Sandy cocks his head in worry, I'm sorry did I say something wrong?

"No. It's just- Jack Frost really is so much cooler after all." Jack says as he tried to get back his old spirit. He grinned as he talkS, "Jack Frost has a sibling too! Jack Frost is seventeen and he has a little sister called Pippa, who he protects with everything he has!"

Jack spends that day filling his new friend in with information of Jack Frost, the amazing mythical being who was immortal, could fly, and always had fun as Sandy listened attentively to the strangely energetic boy until his friends and family came to visit him and Jack had to leave.

Jack didn't have much at the moment. He didn't have parents who stayed by his side as he slept. He no longer had a sister who would soothe him and tell stories to him and all his friends were in school with Ms. Tooth.

Jack had nothing but Jack wished he had everything.

So instead, Jack tells Sandy of the ways he wanted life to be.

Jack had seen it so many times already on television. People who had their heads shaved for various reasons. Some because they had to go to military school, others because it was in style, and in some cases, because they were very, very sick.

It was busy day for Jack. He hadn't seen his dad even once, although Dr. Pitchiner told him that he came a few times to ask about his tests. Jack hated Dr. Pitchiner even more for not telling or waking Jack up whenever his dad would come to his room.

Jack had been undergoing many tests recently. Today he was going to start on one that was called 'chemotherapy', something about destroying cells- Jack hadn't been listening. He never listened besides, what was the use of having parents? They're supposed to be there to listen for you when you couldn't. But Jack's parents weren't there when Dr. Pitchiner explained to him about 'chemo' and Jack focused more on the fact that no one was there to hold his hand as he went through these tests.

"You'll go bald in ten to fourteen days." This information had at least caught Jack's attention. "Some patients would rather have their hair shaven immediately but it's still up to you." Dr. Pitchiner says as he looked at Jack who looked up at those words.

"I'll think about it." Was all Jack could say before Dr. Pitchiner turned to leave his room.

"Oh. By the way, a man is going to go around giving gifts several days from now for Christmas." Dr. Pitchiner stated as he adjusted the glasses on the bridge of his nose. "Don't wandering off or you won't get any presents."

Jack nods absently but he was already planning his latest rendezvous with his new friend Sandy, who was to stay at least a few more weeks in the hospital with him. Pitch shook his head as though he could read what the other was thinking, and the old doctor turned to leave…

…Leaving Jack alone in his room once more.

The rate at which Jack was losing his appetite was alarming.

The other still opted to going to the cafeteria by himself, IV still in tow rather than having the nurse bring him anything, but whenever Jack would arrive in front of the cafeteria counter, he'd ended up just taking a slice of an apple or a small banana for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

He'd sit on one of the cafeteria tables and just stare at the fruit, frowning. Sometimes he'd had a craving for something –spaghetti, ham, fish – but then all of a sudden he didn't feel like eating anymore. He was getting thinner and thinner, and he knew if he's sister could see him now, she'd cluck her tongue disapprovingly at him.

"Looks like you haven't had any arvo yet, ankle-biter." An Australian tone suddenly caught Jack's ear as he looked up, stunned. Jack scowled at the man who was surveying him with bright green eyes. "Ya don't look like yer happy to see me."

"We didn't exactly become friends last time." Jack huffs and the Aussie sighed as he took off his hat. The hair under there an exotic color of gray and white which could only be hair dye.

"Yeh have some little temper for an ankle-biter dontcha?" The older man says as he placed his hat on the table.

"That's bad manners." Jack points out.

The tanned man raises an eyebrow, "So is being angry with your senior, but I ain't calling you out on that now, am I?"

Jack frowns and the older Aussie huffed in annoyance at the kid's stubbornness. So he shoves a hand into his pocket and pulled out an impressive looking chocolate bar and tosses it to the other, "Here."

Jack catches it slumsily with his fingers and he looks at Bunny warily, "This is?"

"A token of our friendship." The older man stated with a shrug. "Made that chocolate meself, been in the family recipes since the '68. It's good quality chocolate."

Jack looked down at the piece of sweet. "My mom told me never to accept anything from strangers."

"This is the second time we met, yeh ain't a stranger to me. Seen you a couple of times already." The tanned man says. "Besides, I didn't put any poison on that."

Jack's brown eyes narrowed. "You sure?"

"As sure as Bob's yer uncle." The Aussie winked and Jack had to smile at that before he tore the wrapper and took a bite. The man chuckled as Jack devoured the chocolate. "Taste any good?"

Jack's eyes twinkled as he grinned, chocolate stuck to his front teeth, "The best!"

And the man in his old kangaroo t-shirts ruffled the boy's hair affectionately. "Good to hear."

"It's falling out." Jack says quietly as he pinched thick strands of hair from his head and they easily come off at the force.

"I told you it would." Pitch says as he writes down on his clipboard. He looks at the bed and sees clumps of brown hair on the pillow. Jack's nose is wrinkled as he reaches up to run his hand through his once thick hair one more time. "I could have the nurse shave it off."

"I don't wanna end up bald." Jack says and Pitch finishes whatever he has written down to face the child patient.

"It wouldn't matter to us if you had your head shaved. There are plenty of other people without any hair." Dr. Pitchiner says expertly and Jack frowns.

"I'm thirteen." And Pitch nods at that.

"Your hair will grow back." He tells the other and Jack looks out the window.

"When?"

"Once we finish with the chemotherapy." Pitch says logically.

"And when will that be?"

"When you're cured."

"When will I be cured?"

"We're working on it." Pitch says, because he knows better than to give false hope.

There was silence in the room as Jack continues to look out of the window. He looked thinner than when he first came in here, dark bags were under his eyes as though he hadn't been sleeping well for the past week.

It killed Pitch, to see someone so young, to see one of his patients undergo such life-changing events with no one beside him.

"I have to go and check on your results from the lab. Do you need anything? A glass of water or more pillows?" Pitch asks as he stood up.

"Just don't turn the lights off." Jack says quietly as he laid back down onto the bed.

Pitch allowed himself to be enamored by this request. "Why?"

"I just don't like the dark."

Information: Sandy's in the hospital because he was in an accident that crushed his vocal chords. His doctor is the same with Jack's: Dr. Pitchiner.

Dr. Pitchiner had a daughter named Serpahina.

Manny's full name is William Manfred Overland.

Aster Bunnymund is an artist, he likes gardening, and he also helps in his family's chocolate confectionary. He is in the hospital for art purposes. He has gotten permission from an old friend of his family's to visit the hospital so that he could get proper inspiration for his arts and illustrations, as he is trying to make an illustration for a children's book.

Chemotherapy, I haven't really done an in depth research on this but it is a big deal to have your head shaved. I got the small information I have on cancer and chemo from google by typing these two keywords.