Written for a prompt which (I'm summarizing) requested the following: Pitch wins, and all the Guardians die. At first fear in the world is extremely powerful, but eventually a sort of natural balance renders Pitch powerless once more. The world has been slowly draining of belief in magic for a long time, and eventually all the belief disappears, leaving us with the world as we know it. Our reality, ruled by science and not magic. Nothing terrible happens to the earth or the people on it; they just go about their lives, unaware that magic ever existed.
Except there's still one magic being left. Jack Frost. His existence was never tied to belief, because he's never been believed in and he's always survived just fine. So Jack is alive, alone, the only spirit in a world that has no belief in magic left.
He was too late. He saw his memories, realized who he was and what he could do, repaired his staff, called out for the wind to carry him home. He saw Jamie in the window, tossing a stuffed rabbit aside - and Baby Tooth gave a tortured little squeak.
Baby Tooth clung to his hand, her eyes wide and scared.
Baby Tooth dissolved into black sand.
And Jack knew: he was too late.
-xxx-
Burgess was dark and quiet. The lights were out. The children slept.
They slept screaming, crying, and their parents came running but they wouldn't wake up. They were trapped in their horrible dreams, Nightmares pacing around their beds. Only Jamie was still awake, and Jack might have thought of some way to save this, some way to fix everything, but Baby Tooth was no more than a handful of nightmare dust and Jamie was settling back into bed and he was too late.
He was much too late.
-xxx-
"Jack," a smooth voice behind him said. "How ever did you recover so quickly?"
He spun around. Pitch was tall, dark and terrifying but blurry. Jack swiped a hand across his eyes and the blur disappeared. The Nightmare King was looking well. His sallow cheeks were flushed with health, his thin lips curved up in a smile.
"Your little Guardian friends are gone, Jack," he said. "It's just you and I now."
Jack clenched his fist around the sand that had once been Baby Tooth. He felt it freezing in his grasp. "What did you do."
It came out like a statement, rather than a question. But it trembled, too, and that made Pitch laugh.
"Nothing at all," he said. "Nothing. I simply had to… wait. When the last light went out –" Pitch snapped his fingers. Jack flinched.
It was all his fault.
He wanted to scream, to rage and cry and attack Pitch with all the power he had, but Jack couldn't seem to move. He stared down at his toes.
Pitch's hand landed on his shoulder. "Jack," he said in a soft voice. "We don't have to be enemies anymore. I'm a forgiving sort. What do you say to joining me now?"
Pitch's hand had no weight. It felt like shadows and rot, and Jack yanked away so violently that he almost fell off Jamie's roof.
"No," Jack whispered, and he wanted to scream it but he could only whisper. "No. I'll never join you."
Pitch sighed. "That is a pity."
And then he was swinging out with his scythe and Jack was countering with his staff and they were fighting again, Cold and Dark and Jack was terrified. Pitch was too strong. Pitch was much, much too strong and the children were screaming in their beds and Jack's ice was no match.
He fled.
Jack didn't know which was worse: his cowardice or the way Pitch let him get away.
-xxx-
Tooth's palace had completely faded. In fact, it had fallen down upon itself; it was no more than a ruin, now. Jack knew it had been beautiful but he hadn't looked closely when he could and now he didn't even remember how the pieces of stone were meant to fit together.
He had no idea how to get to Bunny's warren. The tunnels were all closed. Somehow, he knew they would never open again – there wasn't anywhere for them to lead to. Not anymore.
North's home wasn't collapsed or missing: just empty. The yetis were all gone, the elves were gone, North's sled and reindeer were gone. The toys were all still there, the lights were on. Freshly-baked cookies sat on a tray, surrounded by little empty elf clothes. When Jack picked up a bell hat, it jingled and black sand shook down to the ground.
The Globe was covered in black.
Jack looked up at the moon, shining full and white and far away, and asked, "Why? If it was going to be like this– why'd you ever bring me back?"
It didn't answer. Of course it didn't. It never answered.
"WHY!" Jack screamed, and his voice was back now, raging out his throat. "I DIDN'T WANT YOU TO! WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME?"
The Moon stared on in silence. Jack lowered his head into his hands and cried.
-xxx-
He felt lethargic, lazy and bored. He couldn't remember what the point was, anymore. Pitch was everywhere and the other spirits were running scared. In the absence of the Guardians, their own powers seemed to be fading as Pitch grew ever stronger. They tried to fight the Nightmare King, but he was unbeatable.
One by one, they started going too. They just… disappeared, and in their place dark sand dripped to the ground and Pitch laughed and laughed.
Jack didn't get involved. What was the point? He knew he couldn't beat Pitch. He'd only fail again, and most of the spirits seemed to be under the impression that he was already dead so they left him alone. Pitch left him alone too. Jack didn't know why.
He wandered around Burgess, following Jamie through the town. Everywhere Jamie went it was cold. Snow fell on him when he walked under trees or gutters; ice tripped him on the steps; the wind blew hard and cold, cutting through his clothes; his windows frosted over.
But he just went inside and sat by the fire. He laughed with his parents and sister and he threw his book of mythical creatures into the trash.
"I hate you," Jack told the boy that night. "Why couldn't you have kept believing just ten seconds longer?"
Jamie thrashed in his bed and woke up sobbing into his pillow. The Nightmare standing over him snorted with approval.
-xxx-
Eventually, things went back to normal. That sounded terrible and it was terrible, but it was true. Jack had been alone for so long. Now he was alone again.
There weren't any other spirits to talk to anymore, not with Pitch hunting them down. And there was no golden dream sand at night, no little fairies fluttering all over the world carting precious memories encased in bloody molars. But there were still Easter eggs and Christmas presents. People still 'consulted' the Groundhog. They just did it all on their own.
The real Groundhog never answered because the real Groundhog was gone. The Easter egg hunts were organized by parents and schools because the Easter Bunny was gone. The presents and stockings were all from mothers and fathers pretending otherwise because North was gone.
Jack traveled on the wind, spreading snow. Sometimes children laughed and played, but he never played with them anymore. It felt wrong to play with them now. He didn't ever use his special snowballs on them, either.
He didn't want to play. He didn't want anything at all, except to go back.
But that wasn't possible and children kept screaming in their sleep, so Jack wandered with the cold and let the years slide by.
-xxx-
He'd lost track of how long it had been, when Pitch showed up again. Everyone else was long gone, Jack knew that. Pitch had hunted them all out of existence decades ago.
"Jack Frost," Pitch said, a little breathless. "Finally. I've been – I've been looking for you."
Jack glared dully at him. "Come to finish me off? I know I'm the last one left."
He clenched his hand tight around his staff, feeling his power building within him. Pitch seemed tired, breathing hard even though all he'd done was step out of a shadow.
"What? No, no, of course not!" Pitch laughed, but it was strained and Jack's frown deepened. He didn't understand what was going on.
"Jack," Pitch said, with a wince. "Perhaps you've noticed – ah, noticed fewer Nightmares about lately."
He hadn't. He didn't pay that close attention to kids anymore. There just didn't seem to be much point, not when they never saw him anyway. Still, Jack just shrugged. "I figured you were taking it easy. You won already."
"Ha. Yes. Yes, I did do that, didn't I?" Pitch's cheeks seemed sunken, his eyes too bright. He reached out and for some reason Jack didn't move away.
His grip on Jack's shoulders was weak. His fingers felt like twigs.
"Jack, I've… let you be, these past years. You know that? You know I could – could've gotten you. Too." Pitch was breathing even harder now, clinging tighter on to Jack. His words came out stilted and with apparent effort.
"Sure," Jack said. "I know that."
He didn't know why, but he didn't ask. Something told him he didn't want to know.
"Good. Good, good," Pitch breathed. "Jack, I have a. A favor to ask."
And Jack realized.
"You're dying!" he laughed, startled. Pitch flinched, and Jack laughed again. "How is that even happening?"
"I – I miscalculated," Pitch admitted, brittle fingers digging in tighter on Jack's shoulders. His face was very close to Jack's own, but neither moved away. "It seems that without any – other things to believe in, people don't." He gasped. "Don't believe in the Boogeyman either."
Jack smiled. It felt weird on his face, and he had the sudden thought of how long has it been since I smiled but ignored it in favor of saying, "Oh, that is just rich."
"Jack," Pitch said, "You have to help–"
"Help?" Jack interrupted. "Help?" he laughed, and he'd never been Winter like this. He felt cold, very cold, and he didn't care.
"Why would I ever, ever help you, Pitch?" Jack asked, and he felt so very very cold, but suddenly he wasn't scared anymore.
He'd always been scared. He'd been so terrified ever since Pitch won that all he'd done was run and try to hide from his failures. He knew why Pitch had left him alive; it was that fear, that delicious terror of the Boogeyman.
But that fear was gone now. It just sputtered out, froze right over, and Jack could see Pitch's eyes widening as he felt it go. The Nightmare King jerked, his breath catching horribly. "Please–"
Jack stabbed his staff through Pitch's stomach, driving the Boogeyman back. Ice began spreading from the wound immediately. Pitch's pale face paled even further. He coughed, a wet, sick sound.
"No–" he said, but stopped upon seeing Jack's wide smile.
"I'm not scared of you, Pitch," Jack said. "I have no reason at all to be scared of you. Neither does anyone else. You're going to die."
The ice was spreading faster and faster, down Pitch's torso, crawling along his limbs. It crackled up his neck, and in his last moments the spirit of fear gave up all semblance of begging.
"You'll be next, Frost!" he snarled. "They don't believe at all anymore. You'll be next!"
"I'll be never," Jack said. He smiled sweetly as the ice covered Pitch's face: mouth first, cheeks and forehead and nose. "Because they never believed in me in the first place."
Pitch's eyes froze last, wide and scared. Jack lifted his staff high in the air, then swung it down hard.
The ice shattered into a million tiny shards.
Jack was alone.
-xxx-
It took several days or maybe years, but when Jack realized what he'd done, he clutched his stomach and vomited in a bush. He reached into the pocket of his hoodie; pulled out a small piece of frozen black sand and stared at it.
"Baby Tooth," he whispered. "I'm so sorry."
"I'm sorry, Tooth. North. Sandy. Bunny – I'm so sorry."
"I'm sorry," he said, screamed, cried, begged. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I – I'm sorry, please…"
The Moon was watching, full and lonely and silent as ever.
-xxx-
Jamie was an old man. Jack almost didn't recognize him, he was so old, but that smile was the same as it once had been. His children were beautiful, his grandchildren even more so, and Jack crouched at the window to watch them opening their Christmas presents.
It wasn't Jamie's fault. It hadn't ever been Jamie's fault.
Jack had traveled a lot since killing Pitch. He didn't have anyone to talk to but the wind, which wasn't a person, and the Moon, who didn't answer, but he'd talked anyway. He'd talked about how much he missed the Guardians, even though he had hardly even known them. He talked about how he wished he could remember his sister's name. At least her name. He talked about dying, being born, killing. He talked about loneliness and belief and why he alone was alive. He talked about the cold in his chest, that deep deep cold that couldn't seem to thaw. He talked about children, and not caring about children, not caring about anything anymore, and he remembered Jamie.
He visited Jamie, and Jamie was an old man with grandchildren.
"They're doing fine," Jack told the wind and the Moon. "They're opening their presents and – and laughing and they don't even notice. They don't have any idea what's missing."
The Moon was large and lonely and sad, and the Man in it had long since faded.
"They don't need us at all," Jack said, watching as the children bundled up to go outside with a new sled, giggling all the while. Jamie had given them the sled. Jack had once given Jamie a great sled ride.
The children ran out into the snow that Jack had not brought. They sat down in the sled and rode it down an icy hill that Jack had not carefully frozen for them. The littlest girl got a bit scared when they started to pick up speed, so Jack formed one of his special snowflakes and dropped it on her nose.
The littlest girl was still scared, as the sled Jamie had pretended was a gift from Santa careened down the hill Jack had not frozen, and Jack laughed a hollow laugh, and soon the littlest girl started to laugh too, all on her own without his help.
Jack dropped back, flopped down in the snow. The sun was burning up the sky, scaring away the Moon that no longer had a Man, and Jack was alone. Jack was alone with that cold cold cold burning in his chest, and he couldn't remember what it meant to smile, to dream, to hope, to laugh or even to fear.
Jack was all alone.
And the sled reached the bottom of the hill. Jamie's grandchildren tumbled out, all laughing, and everything was fine. The whole world was just fine.
I hope you enjoyed this slice of tragedy!
If (like me) you are a sucker for happy or even just bittersweet endings, someone else wrote a fantastic sequel/coda to this story. It's based on the premise that Jack eventually just gives up and sits down someone, and then doesn't move for centuries, maybe even millenniums. Meanwhile, the world around him is changing, going full circle. Belief comes back, just in new spirits this time, but Jack is totally unaware, still stuck in that comatose state. Until one day, one of the spirits trying to get his attention appears a little too familiar...
It's called Sit and can be found on the Rise of the Guardians kink meme, Round Three, page 58. I've also got a link posted on my profile.
Seriously, check it out. It'll make you feel so much better about this AU universe.