**Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Frozen or Rise of the Guardians. They belong to Disney and Dreamworks respectively**
Elsa!" The scream tore from his throat as Jack bolted upright. He scrambled in the darkness, clawing blindly for a girl he had not seen in nearly five years. His fingers gained purchase on no more than cotton sheets and a fluffy throw pillow-but with his brain still caught between the land of nightmares and the waking world, still he fought to save her.
"Jack? Jack!" Tooth had swung open the door, and with a flutter of wings she was at his side. She grabbed his flailing hands, stilling them with her own. "Jack, wake up! You're...you're having a nightmare!"
Her shrill, frightened voice reached deep into his terror, drawing him to the surface. He stopped thrashing, blue eyes blinking up at her in dazed horror. "Elsa. It was Elsa. She's hurt...maybe worse. The sword..." He wrenched free of her grasp, blindly reaching for his staff.
"It's not real, Jack. You know it's not real!" She fluttered back, just as North appeared in the doorway.
"What's going on here?" His heavy accent was deep from slumber.
"Pitch visited Jack!" Tooth fluttered to his side frantically. "It must be Pitch...he was having a nightmare!"
Jack barely heard them. His staff in hand, he was already charging for the door. North's thick arm stopped him in his tracks. "Just stop a minute, son! Pitch is gone. You know that...it will take centuries for him to gain strength enough to be a threat. Whatever you think you saw...it couldn't have been real."
Jack glared up at him, frost creeping down the length of his staff as his hand wound tighter against it. "It was real. I don't know if it was Pitch's work or not. But it wasn't a dream...or a nightmare. It was a vision, North...of something that's really going to happen. Or something that already did. And that's why I need to go. I need to find her. I need to save her if I can." He didn't have time to explain just how he knew what he'd seen was true-but he knew it just the same.
"What's happening?" Bunny had stepped into the picture.
"Elsa. She was exiled...until some men captured her and brought her back to the castle. Something happened...she was stumbling through the snow...maybe lost, I don't know. But then she fell, and he...he swung the sword right for her..." Jack had gotten past North, but it was Bunny who stopped him again.
"Who, mate? Pitch? Pitch hurt her?" All three of them looked as if they didn't believe a word he was saying.
"No. The man that captured her. I need to find her. I need to see..." Jack couldn't bring himself entertain the possibility of a world that no longer had Elsa in it. "Let me go." He wrenched free of Bunny's grasp, making it out into the corridor.
"Jack!" North's thunderous voice nearly shook the walls.
Jack whirled. "North, I'm going!"
"And what if it was Pitch that showed you this vision? What then? You'll be leading him straight to her." North was standing in the doorway, flanked by Bunny and Tooth. All three of them were looking at him desperately. "Let Bunny or Tooth go to check on her. Don't open old wounds."
"If it was Pitch, then he already knows. And everything I've done to try to keep her safe...then it'll have been for nothing, anyway. I never should have left her, North. I'm going back...no one else. And if she's alive...I'm not making that mistake again." Jack didn't wait for a response. He climbed from the window, letting the icy north winds claim him and guide him on his way to Arendelle.