For the longest time he was traveling rapidly through a tunnel of sparkling and swirling lights and colors. Jack kept his eyes ahead, his gaze locked on the single dot of white light at the very end. Gritting his teeth, he pushed on, a force within the vortex hitting his face and whipping his white hair around. The white light grew almost blinding, and with a startled cry he covered his eyes with one arm. He felt his weight shift and his body twist upward. Suddenly he was plowing face-first into a dirt ground, stopping when his head smacked into a wooden cart.
Jack laid there in lethargy before groggily and dizzily propping himself up on his elbows. He rubbed his nose and forehead with a groan of pain and sat up. After pulling himself back together, he glanced around and found his staff lying a few feet away. Rushing over, he quickly collected the precious staff in his hands. He instinctively inspected the delicate object, the memory of Pitch breaking it in two flashing through his mind. When he didn't see any cracks or splinters, he sighed in relief.
"Jeez, wish these globes didn't spit you out like that," he grumbled, running a hand through his hair and down the back of his aching neck. He took a small step back, his ankle bumping into the wooden cart he'd hit. The cart was filled with a pile of hay. Jack's eyes trailed along the ground until he was looking ahead in front of him. His eyes widened and he felt his breathing hitch as nostalgia struck him, filling his senses.
Small wooden houses with thatched roofing where huddled close together within the boundaries of short wooden fences overcrowded with tall grass and plants and a few crops here and there. Little girls in dresses and boys wearing brown trousers that resembled his own frolicked about, playing games and chasing one another around the homes and through the forests that surrounded the village. Dogs barked. Horses and ponies clopped around, eating hay or being ridden on. On the far side on the left, Jack could see a women drawing water out of a well. On the other side, a few men were boiling something over a fire. A breeze swept through, ruffling Jack's hair and bring with it a familiar scent. The scent of burning wood...Grass...
He inhaled, memories flickering across his mind so quickly he couldn't register them all. Then he saw in the distance a familiar road that led to a familiar pond. An incredulous laugh left his lips.
This was Burgess three hundred years ago. This was home.
A squeak behind his ear caught his attention.
"Huh?"
Jack raised a hand to the crook of his neck and felt around until he poked something soft and feathery under the fold of his hood. He looked down to see a familiar little fairy crawling out from under his hood and onto his shoulder, her tiny head rotating slightly in a lightheaded fashion.
"Baby Tooth?" he said, gently taking the fairy into his hand. He looked down in surprise and confusion. "W-what are you doing here?"
The fairy simply shook her head to clear her dizziness. Then she smiled, chirping happily, and Jack couldn't help but grin. He placed her back on his shoulder. Nothing wrong with a little company. Besides, he enjoyed carrying her around anyway, especially all that they'd been through together with Pitch and all.
Jack looked ahead. There was a smooth dirt road leading right into the town from where he was standing. He started to feel nervous, but then remembered.
No one...Will see me so... Then Jack frowned. Even if he could see his family again, would they see him?
Baby Tooth gently pecked his cheek. He glanced down at the fairy, who chirped and beamed at him, encouraging him to go on. Jack chuckled, his anxiety diminishing. He really did owe the little fairy for always helping him.
He faced forward, taking in a deep breath and exhaling slowly. One step forward, then another, Baby Tooth egging him on, until he was cautiously walking into the old Burgess. A few kids raced towards him, screaming and shouting. Jack immediately stopped, flinching away and bracing himself, but the kids passed right through him. Jack breathed in deeply, clutching his stomach with a scowl. After 300 years, he was kind of use to it, but the feeling of something going right through you was still sickening and unnerving. Thankfully, though, that didn't happen as much anymore in his time. He remembered Jamie's hug and smiled.
Jack watched the children jump into mountains of hay, laughing and pushing each other. He glanced around. Everyone was busy doing their own thing. Feeding animals...Cooking...Socializing...
Where was his family?
As he strolled deeper into the town, he began to recognize faces, names manifesting in his mind to match. Memories continued to pour into his head, flashing right before his eyes like an endless film roll. Jack stopped walking, feeling a little overwhelmed by the nostalgic flow. He rubbed his fingers against his forehead and sighed. Then a particular memory eased its way in, and Jack's eyes widened.
He suddenly knew the path he was on. He suddenly knew for a fact that he was going the wrong way.
Jack turned around and hurried off in the opposite direction before making a quick left around a shed. He was certain of where he was going now, his past knowledge of the area returning. He stepped through a gap in a fence and make his way through thick, tall grass. It was a shortcut to his house, a way into the nearby woods.
The grass began to shorten as he neared the trees. He could spot out a few more houses here and there. He stopped.
"What am I doing?" he asked himself. He looked at his staff, rolling his eyes at his own forgetfulness. Jack raised the staff before bringing the bottom down onto the earth. A pathway of ice immediately built itself over the land, reaching all the way into the woods. It was a short distance, but why walk when he could slide? And so he did.
"Hang on, Baby Tooth!" Jack hopped onto the trail and started surfing the ice, cheering as he went. Baby Tooth squealed, grasping his hood and batting her wings excitedly. Jack couldn't help but snicker at the confused civilians who where wondering where on Earth the ice had come from.
The path finally ended, stopping a towering tree. Jack stepped off the ice and gazed into the forest. He nearly dropped his staff.
There is was. Sitting right across from where he was standing, right at the entrance way to a path that led to the pond.
It was his house. His house, small and made of wood like all the others, but so special as he looked on.
Jack's heart began to race as he stepped forward. He swallowed, drawing closer and closer. More memories came crashing back, memories of his parents and his sister and all her little friends. They whirled in his mind like a wild tornado, pounding him over and over in bursts of voices and pictures.
Next thing he knew he was right in front of the door. Jack gasped and shook his head. The wood was a soft brown, and without a lot of scratches or cracks. Just like he remembered. Jack looked up, taking in the sight of his home, before looking back at the door, finding it memorizing. His hand lifted, slowly moving forward. His fingers where inches away before someone pulled the door open.
Jack gasped and retracted. Then he looked up, and his heart almost stopped.
Her short brown hair was so fresh in his mind. Everything about her. The soft features of her round face...Her warm smiles...The love in her eyes...
"M..." He wasn't use to saying it anymore but... "M-mom?"
He started to smile, then stopped. She was looking right through him. She couldn't see him. That and...she just looked so sad. The eyes he recalled weren't present, instead all he saw where two black circles, dull and filled with grief. There were heavy bags under her eyes, as if she hadn't slept for days. She was painfully thin, way thinner than in his memories. Her hair was a mess. Her mouth was hanging open slightly as she stared passed him and off into nothing. She looked...awful.
Jack felt his heart constrict.
"Mom?" he said, his voice breaking. "Mom? What's wrong?" He wasn't thinking about the fact she couldn't see him. Why did she look like this? Who was this women who was the polar opposite of the bright one he'd seen in his memories?
"Mom...Mom!" He raised his voice, staring into her lifeless eyes. He wanted to run into her arms, to feel her warm embrace again. She looked down and rubbed her eyes. She stepped out of the house, passing through him. Jack felt needles piercing his heart. Again. And again. He spun around and leaped into the hair, landing in front of her. He knew it was pointless but he still just wanted her to look at him.
"M-mom...Mother..."
His only answer was a blank stare. His heart raced faster. He was about to call her again, but another familiar voice intervened.
"Dear."
Jack looked around his mom and back at the house. His heart leaped, his icy blue eyes growing wider. It was his dad, tall and hairy. His facial features where also creased and marred with depression. Jack's eyes followed his dad as he stepped out of the house and made his way to his wife's side, placing a hand on her shoulder. His dad's eyes narrowed, as if he were in pain. Then he shook his head and looked at Jack's mom.
"Dear...," he said, his voice no where near the joyful and heart tone Jack remembered. Seeing both of his parents for the first time in over three hundred years...Seeing them like this was too much.
Jack squeezed his staff, unaware of the frost seeping out from under his feet and feeling utterly hopeless as he stared at his crestfallen parents. But they didn't seem to notice the sudden ice on the ground, either. His mom shivered, and Jack immediately backed away. Her trembling arms wrapped around her, her face wrinkling even more with discomfort and sadness.
Jack frowned deeply, his heart aching. He wanted to reach out, to touch them and let them know he was alright, that he was standing right in front of them.
But he knew he couldn't, and it hurt.
"Where's Emma?" his mom quietly asked, voice hoarse and broken. Jack's eyelids jumped at the mention of his sister. His dad gave her shoulder a squeeze.
"She went to the pond," his dad solemnly replied. He sighed. "She's been there since this morning."
The pond...
Jack turned towards the pathway next to his house, the very road he and Emma had traveled up to skate and play on the frozen pond. The day he...
He cringed, not wanting to finish the thought.
Baby Tooth poked out from his hood. She looked sad, her pink and blue eyes glowing with concern for Jack. The winter spirit gave her a slight smile, gently petting her head with his finger.
"My sister's at the pond," he said, gazing back at the dirt path. Then he looked back down at Baby Tooth and grinned. "Why don't we go see her?"
Baby Tooth chirped with a small beam and nodded.
Jack returned the gesture, then looked at his parents. He watched his mom turn around and move into his dad's chest, and she started to cry. A tear slipped from his dad as well, raising his arms to hug his wife close.
"I miss him so much...," she sobbed.
"Me, too, Dear," his dad said, his face getting wetter and wetter. "Me, too."
Jack stilled. That's right...He was...He had just...
I'm...I'm right here. I'm right in front of you. He stepped forward, raising a hand, intent on touching his mom's cheek. So close, but then...Nothing. His fingers slipped right through her skin, as if he'd done nothing but wave his hand through the air.
A despondent, fractured breath escaped his cold lips. He took several unsteady steps back, almost tripping over rock. Jack just stared for a while, taking in his parents and their pitiful faces and their crying.
It sucked.
Something wet rolled down Jack's cheek. His hand shot up and smacked his face, startled by the sudden feeling. But more of it came rushing down his face, until it dripped off his chin.
Jack frowned and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. He held his arm over his eyes, the fabric of his hoodie soaking up his tears.
The last time he'd cried was because of Jamie, because he had been the first person to see him in over three hundred years. Tears of joy, short-lived because of Pitch and everything. And now...The tears weren't stopping. No one could see him, yet again. Not even his own parents. He couldn't reach out to them. Nothing. It just...
Something probed his cheek.
Jack lowered his arm and looked down at Baby Tooth, the mini fairy a tiny blob of colors because of his moist eyes. He blinked the tears away. Baby Tooth gazed at him anxiously, then glanced off somewhere else. She flitted her blue and pink eyes back to Jack before gesturing with her small head towards the pathway to the pond. She chirped.
Jack raised his eyebrows, somehow perfectly understanding her.
Go see your sister, Jack.
He looked back at his parents, longingly, then sighed heavily.
"I'm...I'm sorry," he whispered, watching them not hearing him. He didn't care, though. Jack held out his hand again, hovering it right next to his mom's cheek, just barely close enough to touch her. He gnawed on his lower lip, unsure of what to say...Not that it mattered since they couldn't hear him but...
"Mom...Dad..." Jack watched as they held each other tighter, lost in their heartache. Another tear slid down Jack's face. "I'm alright now. I have really...really cool friends. They're kinda like a family to me now and they care about me and...so...don't cry."
Jack raised his staff, concentrating. A jolt of blue wormed its way through the spirals and curves of the rough wood and shot out of the crook. Snowflakes burst from the blast, bits of snow beginning to rain down.
His parents both looked up in utter shock, bewildered by the snow that literally came out of no where. His mom through her head towards the sky. Not a cloud in sight.
"Wha...What...," she began, pulling away from her husband and holding out her hands so that her palms were open, catching the fluttering bits of ice. Her dull eyes widened, brightening a little in awe at the snow mysteriously falling from...from wherever.
Jack was already traveling up the road towards the pond. He paused, glancing back at his mom and dad, both of them gazing astonished at Jack's little trick. He smiled sadly.
"Love you guys...and thanks for everything."
One last look. And then he was off.
The road wasn't long. A few minutes of walking, and he could see a hill. The pond was right over it.
Jack slowed his pace, taking a moment to observe his surroundings. Birds flittered about in the trees, streams of sunlight shining through gaps between their thin branches. The ground was soft, the dirt and soil grainy between his toes. Kids were laughing somewhere, a few screaming from all the fun they were having.
Jack coughed, pulling at the front of his hoodie. Baby Tooth squeaked, her expression questioning.
"It's a little too warm for my taste," he said. He grinned down at her. "But it's alright. This is nothing compared to where you live."
Baby Tooth crossed her tiny arms, her expression conveying, Well it's Southeast Asia. What do you expect?
Jack laughed.
They moved over the hill, and there it was. The pond, still somewhat frozen.
And then...there she was.
Jack stopped where he was, staring at her.
She was wearing another one of her plain but pretty brown dresses, the ones mom would make just for her, this one trimmed with light blue and a floral design. Her brown hair had gotten longer, flowing over her shoulders and down her back. She was sitting at the pond's edge, knees pulled into her small frame, her eyes gazing out across the pond's surface.
Jack slowly moved closer, examining her face. There were frightening bags beneath her eyes. Her eyes...They looked like his mom's. Striped of life. Filled with despair and grief and loss.
How many times would Jack's heart break?
When he reached the pond's edge, he bent down to her level, silently studying her. His mind was at war with itself, clashing between feeling overjoyed or dejected.
"E...Emma...," he choked out, swallowing. Could she see him? Probably not. No, she couldn't because...
Jack's eyes widened when Emma's chin rose slightly off her knees. She turned her head, her blackened eyes looking straight at him.
Sorry it took so long! Next chapter will be the last. Let me know what you think. I apologize if I suck at describing things...Ugh, I try. =_= But whatever. Anyway, hope you liked it! Hugs and kisses~ God bless!
