Start Again

Chapter one: In which the Sandman hears a tale

Sandy had been understandably curious about what had transpired after Pitch had shot him. For him, time had been absent as he drifted in the memory of falling stars and nightmare gallons and clung to the single clear voice of the celestial child who had wished him well.

Bad things had happened to his friends while he was gone, dark things that left aches and scars that did not show, yet were visible just under the surface. None of them would tell him though. They looked away and muttered vagueness, and would not meet his eyes, as if there were some guilt involved.

Finally, out of sheer frustration, he went to Jack. The winter child was decisively skittish around all of them. He was drawn, almost unwillingly it seemed, to the possibility of company, but he was unable to settle into it, always gone as quickly as he came. He would not go near Bunnymund at all. Sandy had spotted him more than once crouched in windows at the Pole, peering in and leaving as soon as he spotted the Pooka, the frosted glass the only sign that he had been there.

They were a few weeks into spring now, and Sandy found Jack far north, where winter still held sway. He was perched on a roof in an Inuit fishing village, watching over children who still had snow to push each other into.

He smiled when Sandy landed next to him, shifting his staff from one side to the other to make room.

"What brings you up here while it's still day light?" the boy cocked his head to the side, curious.

Sandy smiled and reached over to tap Jack's left hand. He had broken the last two fingers on the hand in the battle with Pitch, but they were finally free of the ice he had encased them in.

"Yeah," Jack shrugged, holding out the hand and flexing his fingers lightly. "It's healed. Still a little tender, but it will loosen up."

He spoke as someone with experience in these things, and it made Sandy sad. It wasn't the sort of experience he wanted anyone to gain. He squeezed Jack's hand lightly and smiled.

Jack returned the grin, then shifted suddenly, bringing up his staff. Sandy looked down in time to see a young boy slip on a sudden patch of ice and fall into a snow drift, out of the way of a speeding snow mobile. He watched Jack forming a snowball out of the corner of his eye, but before he could query, the boy had thrown it, hitting the back end of the machine with a force that dented the metal. The driver skidded to a stop, looking around for what had hit him.

"That's why I'm on the naughty list," Jack settled back, hooking an arm around one knee, "one of the reasons anyway."

Sandy made a mental note to talk to North about Jack's place on the list, but that wasn't why he had come. He touched Jack's shoulder to get his attention and formed a question mark over his head.

"Okay," Jack drew the word out almost cautiously, "what's your question?"

Sandy created an image of Pitch drawing an arrow and an image of himself waking up with a question mark in-between.

"You want to know what happened?" Jack frowned, fingering his staff nervously. "Shouldn't you ask the others?"

Sandy gave him an exasperated look, and the boy sighed, drawing his other knee up to him and settling his staff against the crook of his shoulder.

"I guess I can tell you," he rested his chin on his knees. "It would be better if they did though."

Sandy touched his shoulder again, the question mark reappearing and his expression encouraging. Jack nodded and rubbed at his eyes tiredly, making the Sandman wonder when the last time he slept had been.

"After…" Jack trailed off, his arms tightening around his knees, and Sandy squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. "After…"

Jack seemed unable to finish the sentence, even with Sandy sitting shoulder to shoulder with him, and Sandy was suddenly more concerned with Jack than with the story. This might not be a story the boy was ready to tell, but before Sandy could convey as much Jack continued.

"We went back to the Pole," Jack jumped ahead slightly. "They thought Easter would be able to fix things, to stop Pitch from being able to take all the belief from the kids. I don't know, maybe it could have."

Sandy already knew that Easter, in a sense, had not happened. Jack curled tighter into himself as he told the story, and Sandy touched his back lightly, waited for the shutter the touch caused to still before he began rubbing gentle circles. They had sent Jack into battle ill prepared. He had asked who Pitch was, and they had never given him an adequate answer, leaving him to stumble by himself through shadow and fear and confusion.

Jack left holes in the story, glossed over things that would at some point need to be farther explained, but not now. He was not gentle with himself in the telling, and Sandy suspected he was overly generous with the other Guardians. He had known them for centuries after all, and 'they were angry and I left' could not have even come close to an accurate description of what had happened after Easter.

He was more than a little appalled that Jack had been faced with Pitch alone not once, but three times. It seemed a miracle that any of them had survived the battled, or perhaps only a testament to what MiM had seen in Jack and the rest of them had missed.

"You know the rest," Jack trailed off, his face hidden against his knees.

Sandy threaded his arms around Jack's shoulders and pressed a kiss to his hair.

Jackson, he brushed gently against the boy's mind, and Jack started in his arms, looking up sharply.

Mind speak, as Nightlight called it, came naturally to most star children, though Sandy didn't use it often. The other Guardians were used to it, but it sometimes frightened the children of Earth. Jack only seemed surprised though.

You did well, he stroked back the tousled hair, wondering if anyone had bothered to tell the boy that yet. Everything would have been lost without you.

"I made a mess of everything," Jack shook his head, looking away. "It was my fault Easter was ruined, and you…"

No, Sandy forced Jack's gaze back to him, Pitch ruined Easter, Pitch hurt me, and while following a snake into its den may not be the smartest thing you've ever done, that doesn't make you responsible for Pitch's actions.

Jack dropped his gaze again, rubbing his eyes, and Sandy wrapped his arms around him, holding him until the tension drained from his body and he leaned his head on Sandy's shoulder, hands coming up tentatively to grip at the arms around him.

"Thanks Sandy," he murmured, voice barely audible.

You are a wonder Jackson, Sandy held him close, I'm sorry we missed it for so long.

A/N: There's a few hints at Sandy's back story from Sanderson Mansnoozie at the very beginning of this chapter. If you really want his back story from the books, PM me and I'll send it to you.

There isn't really a lot of continuity between the book series and the movie, but I'm still drawing my backgrounds for the characters from the books because I think it's a richer background to draw from, which is why Sandy 'talks.' (I know there are problems with randomly squishing the two together, but I'm trying not to over think it at this point.)

Having him speak in thought is my compromise between the books and the movie. Sandy talks in the book, so what I've done is model Sandy's silence off of Nightlight's silence, which is voluntary (Nightlight is a character from the book series who doesn't appear in the movie). Nightlight is perfectly capable of talking, but he's much more inclined to speak with thoughts than out loud. So, I have Sandy doing the same.

I'm calling the Man in the Moon 'MiM' because that's what he's called in the books, and I like it better than 'Manny'. His real name is Tsar Lunar.

Jack's broken fingers are totally head canon. He got thrown into a crevasse and knocked out of the sky. There must have been some injuries in there somewhere.

Next chapter: Bunnymund goes a hunting