Black Winding Tendrils

by moonshadow2012

A confrontation with Pitch leaves Jack with only the memories of his life BEFORE he was Jack Frost, and the Guardians have to protect the amnesiac Jack from Pitch, who seems intent on destroying him. But there's another game being played here, and only Jack is capable of stopping it before everyone goes down, pitch black and ice cold.

My first ROTG fanfic! I hope you enjoy it! I absolutely loved the movie so I'll try to make this the best that I can, although I think it might be just a little darker than the movie was… R&R

I'm a slow dying flower

The Frost-killing hour

Sweet turning sour and untouchable

But contend loves the silence

It thrives in the dark

With fine winding tendrils that strangle the heart

~My Skin, Natalie Merchant

Jack? Jack? Jack?

Her voice haunts me. It's in my head all the time. Sometimes I don't notice it. Sometimes I can pretend I'm okay, like I was before. But even then I know – she's still there. And anyway, I was never really okay before either. Being ignored and not believed in takes its toll on the most light of spirits. (I guess you could say that's me. I'm light enough to be carried by the Wind.)

Jack? Jack?

It's a battle between wanting her to leave and wanting her to stay so bad. I know she meant so much to me. I know I loved her more than I did myself. But…she's just a girl in a memory now. Almost like she was part of a life that happened to someone else. She's… I don't know what she is. She's there, and sometimes she's just so real. It's times like that when I want to reach out and hold her in my arms, to feel her with me and feel like I belong. And other times…I just want her to go away. I just want the guilt to go away. The pain, the uncertainty. I'll never know. I'll never know if she lived a long happy life or was wiped out by the plague or something. Or worse…by one of my early failures.

Jack? Jack?

Questions haunt me. I wonder if she made up those stories of Jack Frost – of me. I wonder if she was the one who first said, "Jack Frost nipping at your nose". I'd like to think she did. But there's something worse. A question that only comes to me on quiet, moonless nights when I'm far from the North Pole and Tooth's hideout and Bunny's meadow and Sandy with his dream sand. A question that seeps into my mind like a twisting shadow as I stare at the frozen surface of the pond in Burgess.

Did she believe in me?

Jack? Jack? Jack? Jack!

And…I'm afraid of the answer. I can barely admit it to myself. Me, Jack Frost of the snowballs and fun times, the Guardian who was responsible for the downfall of Pitch Black – I'm afraid. And whenever I realize that, I shove the realization into a deep corner in my mind and forget about it. Or at least I try to…until the next moonless night when I'm all alone in Burgess.

Jack! Jack! JACK!

But what I think bothers me the most is this; I don't even know her name. And unless Tooth has some more magic teeth out there for me, I never will.