"We'll give them a world where everything, everything is-"

"Pitch black?"

The Boogeyman missed a beat as he realized his mistake, but quickly amended, "And Jack Frost, too."

No.

This wasn't supposed to happen. Jack wasn't supposed to be seen as such a screw-up, and worse, live up to that image. He wasn't supposed to have caused anything bad at such a critical time as this. He was supposed to be a Guardian, and for a while, he'd actually believed he would be. But if it was ever a possibility, it was ruined and gone now. Because of him.

Pitch.

Jack clenched his fists and glared at the tall, imposing man before him. Pitch was smirking, the bastard, and from the look he was giving Jack, he fully expected the winter spirit to take his side. To buy into the tripe he was spewing. For a moment, Jack almost had, before common sense kicked in, and that was just as sickening. The thought of joining that snake was, ironically, enough to make even Jack's blood boil after he came to his senses enough to see through the yarn Pitch was spinning.

As much as he wanted to be seen, and no matter how much Pitch might want the same thing, there was no way they'd be able to work together. Not after what Pitch had done to the Guardians, Sandy, children...even Jack himself.

"No." Jack shook his head. "They'll fear both of us, and that's not what I want."

He had made mistakes. Big ones. He'd seriously messed up with the Guardians and when it came down to it there was nobody else to really blame but him. Pitch may have been the instigator, but it was Jack who had so carelessly fallen into his trap. He swallowed thickly, thinking of what could have been. Things were going so well before he'd ruined everything by being so stupid...

"Now for the last time," he choked out, turning away from Pitch, "leave me alone."

Pitch was taken aback for a moment; he'd been so confident Jack would accept his offer. But he squashed down the instant of weakness, of pure, genuine disappointment, and recovered. With a clear scowl on his face, he spat out, "Fine. You want to be alone. Done. But first..."

At those last two words, Jack turned back around, fully alert. What was Pitch going to...

Noticing the winter spirit's alarmed expression, a sinister smile made its way to Pitch's face as he threateningly held up Baby Tooth in his clenched fist.

Jack gasped. "Baby Tooth!" he exclaimed, impulsively beginning to hurry over. Seeing the pained look on the tiny fairy's face, Jack angrily pointed his staff at Pitch, getting ready to blast him with ice.

"The staff, Jack!" Pitch yelled, having expected Jack to have such a reaction. Once he saw the boy falter for a bit, he continued, "You have a bad habit of interfering. Now hand it over..." He gave Baby Tooth a brief, condescending glance. "And I'll let her go."

Jack felt the blood run out of his face and the temperature around them plummeted even further. No no no NO this was wrong, he shouldn't have her, she shouldn't be in such danger, this was...

This was his fault.

He'd left her, forgotten her, abandoned the closest thing to a friend he'd ever had in three hundred years of life.

He'd done this.

Baby Tooth shook her little head, terror and desperation clear in her mismatched eyes but urging him to reject Pitch's 'offer' either way.

The Boogeyman's fist tightened around her tiny body and she winced, the nearly inaudible squeak of pain sending shards of ice through Jack's heart. He couldn't let this happen to her, but she was trying to convince him to let it. She was so much stronger than he was.

Jack didn't want anyone else to feel pain because of him. He'd rather die.

His shoulders slumped and a victorious gleam shone in Pitch's eyes as Jack handed the staff over.

As Pitch wrapped his bony fingers around Jack's staff and the latter let go of it without any sign of hesitation, the staff lost its bright blue glow and became nothing more than a mundane, normal, every-day stick.

"Alright," Jack began, gulping down the lump that was beginning to rise in his throat, "now let her go." He held out an arm, expecting Pitch to relinquish Baby Tooth to him any second.

His facial expression becoming more and more smug, Pitch did a slight shaking of his head. "No," he stated simply.

Jack was shocked. As his arm slowly fell back to his side, he glared at Pitch hatefully. However, despite this, he knew that he had just once again screwed up. How could he have been so naive? How could it not have occurred to him that Pitch wasn't planning on holding his side of the bargain, Now not only did Pitch still have Baby Tooth, but Jack was powerless without his staff as well.

"You said you wanted to be alone," Pitch was saying. Raising his voice, he growled, "So be alone!"

Baby Tooth, looking up at Pitch with determination, immediately jabbed his thumb with her sharp nose as hard as she could. Pitch startled and yelped in pain, having not expected that, and hurled the fairy furiously in the direction of the chasm behind Jack.

Jack watched Baby Tooth get flung mercilessly into and shouted, "No!" He whirled around, only to witness Pitch bend his staff over his knee and snap it in half.

He suddenly felt an incredible pain in his chest and couldn't hold back and agonized yell. Pitch took this moment as an advantage and shot a stream of black sand at Jack, throwing him backwards. His back hit the chasm and he fell straight to the bottom. He grunted as he hit the solid ice below, pain wracking his body. Jack was dimly aware of Pitch's dark chuckle from above, and the clattering of two pieces of wood as they were thrown down. He struggled to raise his head, fixing his eyes on the snapped staff, but it wasn't a staff any longer. Just a couple of sticks, or firewood. Kindling.

He shifted his gaze and caught sight of a barely-visible teal bundle a few feet away.

"Baby Tooth," Jack coughed, trying to edge himself forward. Every movement brought pain and he squeezed his eyes shut in a futile attempt to fight it back. It hurt, it hurt, everything hurt...

But he had to keep going. She needed him. Jack grunted and clawed at the ice, pulling himself forward just far enough so the fairy was at least within arm's reach, then scooped her towards him. Baby Tooth was cold, shivering, and she looked so scared...

"Sorry," Jack huffed. His breath was heavy and he couldn't seem to inhale properly. What was happening...? He coughed again, which didn't help at all. "I'm so s-sorry. This is my fault."

Baby Tooth shook her head worriedly, chirping what was likely reassurance. Black spots danced in Jack's vision and he curled on in himself, gently setting her on the ground and wrapping his arms around his abdomen.

Drums were pounding in his head and he could hear the blood pumping in his ears. A slow, creeping numbness was beginning in his fingertips and toes and spreading ever so slightly to his hands and feet, arms and legs.

"We'll be fine," Jack whispered, unsure of whom he was trying to comfort. He could barely hear his own voice.

Baby Tooth clearly didn't believe him one bit. She fixed her concerned gaze on him-she was only a bit dazed from Pitch's throw, but Jack was obviously not as fortunate. His breathing was becoming increasingly irregular and he seemed to become more and more sluggish with each passing moment.

As if reading her thoughts, he weakly reassured her, "I'm okay. I'm okay..."

However, his voice betrayed his physical discomfort, and he had to curse himself for being such a terrible liar.

Baby Tooth chirped out something that mostly meant, 'You're not okay and you know it.' She struggled to fly up to him and pecked at his cheek, sensing that he was gradually slipping into unconsciousness and attempting to keep him awake.

"I'm sorry," Jack managed to slur out, not feeling much else besides the mottled pain and numbness and that deep, deep regret. He vaguely thought that maybe he ought to try fighting against the fuzziness, that maybe he shouldn't sleep now, and that that was selfish of him in such a situation as this. Maybe Baby Tooth needed him...for something...

No. Of course she didn't. Why would she? All he did was screw up... She was so much stronger than him, anyway.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, clearing his throat and slightly pleased that it helped the slurred quality of his words. "I messed up bad... It's...It's my fault we're in this situation..."

He then closed his eyes and let himself succumb to exhaustion, finally out.

It never occurred to him that he might be dying.

Thousands of miles away, eight-year-old Jamie Bennett sat in his room, in the dark, staring seriously at his stuffed rabbit.

"You don't have to do much," he told it. "Just a little sign, so I know."

He furrowed his brow at it. The rabbit's black button eyes, one of them missing, didn't do much at all.

"Anything," Jamie encouraged, his own eyes widening with hope. "Anything at all..."

The rabbit was silent. A chill wind blew outside, signalling a storm to come, and the force of it rattled the boy's wooden window frame. Aside from that, there was no sound. No sign. Jamie's face began to fall.

"I knew it," he sighed. Not entirely surprised, but disappointed all the same. His thin shoulders slumped and he set the rabbit to the side of the bed. It slipped off the planet-printed comforter and fell to the floor, where it lay unconsidered. Jamie rose, shut the window to block the wind, and crawled into bed.

At the North Pole, in Pitch's lair, and many places besides, the last light on the globe finally went out.

What happened after that fateful Easter could only be described as a slow disaster. Not the sort of disaster that happens suddenly, without warning, but one just as destructive. Simply in different ways. There are several discussions that could be made for what qualifies as a disaster, and the Guardians would surely count one such as this among the numbers.

They did eventually find Jack, thanks to Tooth's telepathic link with her fairies and Baby Tooth by extension. They used the last of North's power to track the two-or one, as it were-to where they lay huddled in that crevasse in Antarctica. Baby Tooth was hysterical and close to hypothermia, but Jack was the one she was most concerned about. He had fallen asleep and not woken up. Not moving or making any sound.

With the fairy's recounting of what had happened in Antarctica coupled with the broken staff and unopened memory box in the winter spirit's hoodie pocket, it wasn't difficult to piece together what had happened.

Just like that, the Guardians had lost another member.

They looked at the memories held in Jack's teeth and discovered what a mistake they had made in casting him out after Easter. The disaster begun when they hadn't listened to his flustered attempts at explanation, and now he was gone and it was their burden to bear. Missing both Jack and the Sandman now, their numbers shrank to three alone.

In the years that followed, the Guardians grew weaker and Pitch Black grew stronger. His influence over the world greatened, but as stated before, it was not an immediate process. It was slow, it crept, but its presence couldn't be denied all the same.

Children grew more solemn and serious as belief in all fantasy figures waned before vanishing altogether and they became just that: fantasies. Nobody believed in fantasies anymore, and young ones grew increasingly impatient with them. Children were not the only ones affected, however; adults and teenagers suffered the same effects.

Crime rates and accidents grew. Hardly anyone could go to sleep without suffering some sort of bad dream. Winters grew colder and harsher without their mediator present, becoming dangerous even in those modern times. The town of Burgess in particular developed an almost constant overcast sky. Scientists attributed the climate changes to dramatic swings brought on by global warming, and everyone believed it. After all, there was no other rational explanation.

The world darkened, and the Man in the Moon had no power to fix it. His last attempt had gone so wrong, his last attempt at sending help to his Guardians so tragic, his power weakened and he withdrew. At quite the bad time; the Guardians could have used some help right about then. But it would be years, decades, before their saving grace would show its face once again.

And finally, one grey morning twenty-six years after the start of this quiet catastrophe, Jacqueline Drosdir awoke from her nightmare.

Friendly reminder that this is not an OC fic. The idea of reincarnation as the opposite gender is just the most hilarious thing to me right now. "Dros dir" apparently is Welsh for "over land". Don't blame me for any inaccuracy there; the only second language I speak is German and "Überland" didn't quite have the same ring.

Many thanks to I.F.T.S for allowing me the use of her reincarnation concept from her story Soul Perception, and to Boba Addict for all the help she gave me in writing this first chapter.