Author's Note: Chapter one takes place in the early seventeen hundreds. Chapter two takes place just after the Guardians defeated Pitch (not the one with Jamie). I drew several elements of this story from Superluminal, another fic of mine. I also referenced Doctor Who.

Originally intended to be a few hundred words long, this fic ran away from me into the realm of more than 5k. You're welcome. (And hopefully the Cyrillic made it through...) Un beta-edited.

Soundtrack: Please Don't Go, Barcelona; Amsterdam, Coldplay; Abigail's Song (Silence Is All You Know), Katherine Jenkins

Pitch interferes. (Three hundred years in the future, there is no Jack Frost.)

"Jack, I'm scared!" Emma cried.

They'd just wanted to go ice-skating.

Jack opened his mouth, the words "I know, I know, but you're going to be alright. You're not going to fall in. We're going to have a little fun instead" right on the tip of his tongue. But instead, fear punched a hole through his stomach. The words wouldn't come.

He was terrified. Terrified that he wouldn't save her, that he might die, that they both might...

"Jack, help me!"

And he wanted to. He wanted to so much. But the fear. It ate him alive. Jack uselessly stretched out his hands to his sister, just a bit too far away. "Emma," he choked out.

"Jack!" she screamed as the ice finally started to cave.

Fear of her dying so powerful his knees weakened hit him full force. And he couldn't do anything as his baby sister fell through to the cold water below.

Pitch was, to put it mildly, bored. And hungry. Starving.

Fear suddenly burst in front of his eyes, slate grey and sharp. Suspiciously wet.

Pitch teleported through the shadows to the fear's source and was confronted with two children and cracking ice.

Delicious.

"Jack, I'm scared!" the young girl wailed, helpless.

A cruel smile crossed Pitch's face. He strode onto the ice confidently, not bothered that they couldn't see him. The boy's fear he could work with. Pitch reached out his hand and touched the boy's forehead, deceptively gentle.

All his fears bubbled to the surface, ugly shades of grey and green and blue mixed with nightmare sand.

"Jack, help me!"

"But he can't, little one," Pitch drawled, drinking in the boy's delicious fears. They were always better tinged with loss.

He turned away from the boy, drawn by the girl's fears of death, ice, and her brother.

"Emma!" he shouted again, suddenly unfreezing and stumbling forwards to the hole in the ice. Without even hesitating, he dove into the water.

But, and Pitch reveled in this information, he was too late.

"Jack, you lied to me. You said I'd be SAFE!" You said I'd be safe! Said I'd be safe. I'd be safe, be safe, safe.

"I'm sorry," he'd say, he'd always say that but it never mattered, "I'm so sorry, Emma."

And she'd lean over and whisper in his ear, "I don't want your sorries, brother mine. I want you dead."

They said he was crazy. Eyes shadowed and bruised, clothes ripped.

They said he was a ghost, no one saw him.

They said he was dangerous, he let his sister die.

They didn't know the first thing about him.

The dreams chased Jack over land and sea, from Massachusetts to Austria to Cairo.

I want you dead.

And he started to say, "Me too, Em."

Pitch was bored again. He found Jack's fears sour with depression, and he didn't like them one bit.

A nightmare nibbled the sleeping boy's hair, and Pitch swatted it away. "Not tonight, Emma."

A wave of bitter fear swept over Jack anyway.

Pitch glared at the nightmare and flew off to terrorize a British tax collector instead.

Jack wound up in the East Indies somehow, on some fishing boat.

The dreams keep following him, but they've taken on a sweeter tone. Emma forgives him now.

Pitch wound up in the East Indies somehow, on a nasty-smelling fishing boat. The nightmare Emma keeps following Jack, but he holds her back. He still doesn't know why.

"No, this one." Pitch pointed to another shirt. "Blue suits you better."

Jack's hand moved from the gray shirt to the blue one, edged in silver.

"Matches your eyes." Pitch shook his head and disappeared into the shadows. Why did he say that?

Jack's eyes were blue. He had no idea, though. It'd been years since he'd looked in a mirror.

Pitch looked up at the moon. "You meddling, star-crossing fool."

The next time Pitch saw Jack, the boy—young man—wore a blue shirt with silver trim. He worked at a surprisingly mundane bookshop, sweeping floors and recommending books.

Emma the nightmare nudged Pitch's hand questioningly. Pitch had grown to loathe the little thing, the pain it brought. Fear was clean, sharp. Pain was confusing, unending.

He dissolved Emma with a flick of his wrist.

"Oh, stop looking at me like that. I think you knew this time would come, old friend. Well, you were right."

Pitch sighed and doodled little butterflies on a piece of scrap paper. "Jack, Jack, Jack... When will you learn? She doesn't like romances, she likes you."

Jack picked out Romeo and Juliet. "Hope ya like a good tragedy."

She took it and blushed.

Pitch laughed, surprised to find the sound wasn't his usual dark chuckle.

Jack cleaned up the shop one last time before closing. A scrap of paper with butterflies drawn on it in black ink lay on the counter.

Days later, Pitch returned to the little bookshop. He leafed through fresh copies of Christopher Marlowe and Antoine Galland. A Thousand and One Nights.

He left the book on the counter when no one was looking.

This was getting strange. Jack kept finding little things everywhere he looked. A length of Persian silk, chain mail links, jade animals, a golden lily, coins from China.

Who kept leaving them?

"Ah, good choice. Jonathan Swift. It was an odd satire, to say the least, but I enjoyed it." Pitch had gotten into the habit of talking aloud to Jack.

Why, he'd never know. Somewhere deep inside him, the remains of that golden general had started to crack his cage. Emma. Oh, he hated those two syllables.

But not her.

Jack thumbed through the pamphlet and opened to page one.

Pitch stared up at the moon. "You did this to me. Clever, very clever..."

The moon seemed to shine brighter.

"Don't look so optimistic. I might be preparing his demise now."

Pitch glared at the stupid silver disk in the sky. "I know you're laughing, Tsar."

And the moon was.

Why did he kill Emma? It was his fault, all his fault. WHY? ...No it wasn't.

IT WAS DON'T DENY IT this is all your doing, every last bit of it

You,

You and your silly fear.

Silly,

Silly

Little

Fear.

He left Jack a piece of smooth onyx, black as night, and a piece of Baltic amber, gold as the sunrise.

I know you hear me.

Go away.

Oh, please. Stop being so childish. I will never go away.

For the love of the stars, leave me alone.

You killed that girl. Emma.

Yes, I did.

You killed her.

AND I'M SORRY!

You are?

...Yes. Yes, I am. All thanks to you.

You're welcome.

Just leave me alone.

Ah, but you are alone.

"Okay, who keeps leaving stuff around the shop?" Jack asked, when they'd all gathered in one place to order new books. "Thanks, but I have a ton of stuff now!"

No one answered. "A poltergeist?" the owner suggested.

Jack was alone in the shop. Sunday evenings weren't very busy.

"H... Hey, poltergeist. Ghost. Whatever. Demon? I just wanna see you. Once is fine."

He waited nervously for half an hour, but no one appeared.

Pitch returned from Russia a day too late.

"Jack?" he called, more out of habit than hope that Jack would hear him.

The owner of the bookshop hung a "help wanted" sign in the store window. To his assistant, he said, "Too bad Overland's decided to move back to America. He was a nice lad."

Pitch teleported to the nearest shipyard. "Jack?" The brown-haired boy was nowhere in sight.

"Jack!"

Finally, he spotted that blue and silver shirt in the distance. Against his instincts, Pitch walked right next to Jack in the faint sunlight. "You know, you shouldn't just run off to America without telling a man."

"What's it to you?" Jack asked.

Pitch nearly fell over.

"Are you a demon, then? Not that it matters."

"I am the Nightmare King, silly boy. Demons run from me."

"So... Are you an angel?"

"Certainly not. Whatever gave you that foolish idea?"

"N-nothing. Why do you follow me around? Were you the one who kept leaving me gifts?"

"Liar, I don't know, yes."

"You don't know?"

"No, I don't. Why are you going to America again?"

"Well... It's America."

"You know there's a rebellion in North Carolina?"

"Oh."

"I do. I started it." Pitch grinned with slightly pointed teeth. And he teleported away through the shadows.

Jack took a ship to Spain instead.

"Hey, Pitch!" Jack shouted over the sea spray. "Gimme a hand!"

The shadow spirit rolled his eyes. "Fine." He helped Jack furl the sail, hissing when salt stung his eyes.

Jack slipped on the deck, and Pitch let out a cry. The Nightmare King grabbed Jack's ankle as he slid by and hauled him back to his feet. "Don't do that again," he threatened. He could make Jack scared of the water. He could give him a nightmare that lasted days about the ocean-

"Aw, you do care," Jack quipped, still clearly shaken.

Pitch sighed gustily at the flippant man. He'd never learn.

"I had a dream."

Pitch hummed noncommittally.

"Are you humming noncommittally at me?"

Pitch hummed again.

"Ugh. It was about Emma again."

"Your little sister."

"How did you know?"

"I am the Nightmare King, after all. You dreamed she had a black horse with her."

"...Yeah."

"Well, that's impossible. I killed that one personally."

"You did that?"

"It was a moment of weakness."

Jack saw Pitch sporadically. Once, the shadow man disappeared for an entire year with no warning.

"Pitch!" Jack nearly hugged the tall, lanky man. "I haven't seen you in ages!"

"Jack. It has been too long."

"Where were you?" he asked.

"Oh, here and there." Pitch bared his slightly pointy teeth. India, Russia, Easter Island, Santoff Claussen...

"You look beat. Want something to drink?"

"...Do you live here?"

"Rude. I'll get some tea."

"No one sees you," Jack commented one day.

Pitch winced. "Yes. But you do."

"Pitch... Hey, don't you dare disappear again! ...damn."

You like him, don't you?

YOU AGAIN!

Of course you do. He sees you, he talks to you like an equal. Don't deny it. You have a heart after all.

I do not-

Please. I can see it, plain as day. I'm not blind.

I'm not sure who you are anymore.

And isn't that the point? Silly you.

"Sit. Stay. Have a biscuit."

"I am not your dog." Pitch dug into his pockets and dumped a handful of small metal pieces on Jack's table.

Jack sighed. "You certainly don't obey like one."

"I am not the obedient kind, Jack Overland. I am a king, and I dominate." He fiddled absently with a little golden locket.

"What's that?" Jack slid a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits over to Pitch. England was really rubbing off on him.

"Mind your own business."

Jack snatched the locket from Pitch's hands, fingers nimble and quick. "Wow, who's she?"

"My—Seraphina Pitchiner."

"Your daughter, huh? Well, she's really beautiful. Looks like you too."

Kozmotis protested this statement. The suppressed spirit was currently doing the mental equivalent of watching through his eyes, eating popcorn.

Oh, he hated Jack Overland.

"What did I say?!" Jack yelled, frustrated. "Pitch! Please come back."

The Nightmare King was nowhere to be found.

"He's using you, Jack."

"Emma? How do you know about Pitch?"

"Oh, dear brother, you know nothing. Pitch Black brought about the end of a golden age. He destroyed whole worlds and cast the universe into darkness. And you're giving him tea and biscuits."

"Look, I know him—"

"But do you? Please. He's dangerous, more dangerous than you know. Forget him."

"He's my friend."

"He killed me."

"Wh... What?"

"Fear. That is his domain. Fear and darkness and nightmares. Remember the fear you felt, brother mine, the day I died?"

"You're not my sister!"

"Oh, but I am. Somewhat." Emma laughed, the sound chilling and alien.

"Emma..."

"Times are changing, brother. Are you ready to change with them?"

"Tell me. Did you kill my sister?"

Pitch's heart froze. "Yes. But-"

"Go. Go away. Leave me alone."

"Jack—"

"GO! Please."

"You want to be alone? Then be alone!" Pitch yelled. He teleported away and didn't care where he ended up.

"Why?" Jack whispered. "Why her? Why are you haunting me? What do you want?"

It's you, you did this.

Yes. I did do this. He deserved to know the truth.

I don't want to hurt him.

You already have. You killed his sister and plagued him with that nightmare, Emma.

I killed Emma twice, in case you didn't know.

He hates you now. He HATES you.

...I know.

"This is your fault! Make him go away make him GO AWAY I can't stand him anymore please."

-pitch?-

"Honestly, I'm not sure anymore... he's too strong."

-oh. hello, kozmotis. i've missed you.-

"Ah, old friend, but I'm not Kozmotis. I'm Pitch Black. Or, I think I am."

-impossible.-

"He's changed. I've changed."

-who is who?-

"You expect me to know?"

-this is not my doing. i am sorry. -

"Liar."

"I don't want to talk to you."

"Ah, brother. You're so silly. One would almost think you... loved that chunk of fear and shadow."

"I don't!"

"He's your friend, you said so."

"Not anymore. He killed you."

"No, Jack. You killed me. You could've overcome his fear! Didn't you love me?"

"I did. I do."

"So it's your fault. All your fault YOUR FAULT YOUR FAULT-"

"Jack, I'm sorry I accidentally killed your sister." Pitch shook his head vehemently. "No, no, all wrong."

"Jack, I don't want you to forgive me. What I did was wrong. But I killed your nightmare... no." What was he doing wrong?

"Jack, I don't have any... sly phrases, tricks up my sleeve to convince you to even talk to me. I just wanted to say... I'll miss you." Pitch tilted his head at the fearling strapped to the wall before him.

"Definitely the wrong audience." He frowned at the shadow being, and it cringed. Without another moment's pause, Pitch slashed the fearling open with one sword stroke.

"Jack, I'm sorry. You'll never see me again."