Jack kept dipping in and out of sleep, he was knackered but his mind just wouldn't shut off. It kept haunting him with nightmares… no… with memories. Memories that should have been long forgotten but kept bubbling up in his memory like a nagging thought.

They all began and ended the same way. Jack would find himself sitting on the low branch of a bare oak tree in the middle of winter. He would watch his breath swirl patterns in the air and squinted at the late afternoon sunlight that would light up the snow.

He would enter the memory laughing, always laughing. Cold biting into his fingers as he moulded a snowball, gloveless, and propelled it straight into the back of a young girl. She would spin around, the same pissed off yet playful look on her face as she threw one back at him, missing by an entire foot as it slammed into the tree bark beside his face. She had a face similar to his, the same brown eyes and oval face but that's where the similarities ended.

"Jack!" she would shout up to him in the tree. "Jack come down, this is unfair, you can see everything from there"

"Exactly" he called down smugly. She would furrow her eyebrows and cross her arms, sticking her tongue out at him.

"Can we play something else… pleeease!"

"Fine" Jack would sigh, pushing himself off the branch and hurtling towards a pile of soft snow beneath him. He landed in it silently and walked over to where his sister was at the frozen lake.

"Jack?" she would ask in her inquisitive tone.

"What?"

"Why is there snow and a frozen lake in the middle of summer?" she asked

"I don't know, mum says it has something to do with changing weather patterns or global warming or something, you know I never pay attention"

"Oh… it's just weird"

"Tell me about it, but that does mean a snow day for you from school" He would pick her up and spin her around as she giggled moving gradually onto the frozen lake which had thinned from the summer sun.

"Stop!" she would giggle "Can I even trust you?"

"How dare you, of course you can…always"

He knew how this bit went, no matter how hard he tried to stop it. He would spin, and spin and spin then hear a CRACK! Before he would have a chance to see where it came from they'd both go plunging into the river. The cold shocking his lungs and weighting heavily on his chest as he tried to gasp for air. In the distance all he would remember seeing was those brown eyes floating further and further away…

He woke with a jerk, drenched in sweat but feeling bitterly cold as goose-bumps riddled his skin. He was back in his room, back in the present. Relief and guilt flooding him, fighting for ownership but guilt winning every time. He went through the normal ritual for after he had a nightmare. Shower, clothes and scotch. He drank it slow and sparingly, allowing himself to feel every drop burn a path down his throat.

"Jack?" said someone behind him as he leant on the breakfast bar. He span around and found Tooth in the doorway to the kitchen. Wearing nothing but his white shirt, combing her fingers through her messy hair. "Babe? What's wrong?"

"Nothing" he said reservedly

"You say that every time but why do I still always find you out here with a glass of whisky"

"Tooth, I said it was nothing"

"Bullshit, why do you never want to tell me anything?"

"Jesus Tooth, you don't need to know everything"

"Yes Jack! Yes I do, that's what you do in a relationship. You tell each other things"

"Well maybe I don't want to be in a relationship anymore"

"What?"

"Can we just face this, I don't make you happy, I'm a worthless piece of shit and I think you deserve better"

"But Jack…"

"You deserve someone who can love you, someone who doesn't have secrets they want to hide from you"

"Jack, hold on…"

"I'm not the guy for you Tooth, I'm the guy for no one"

"Jack… I love you" She whispered, tears streaming down her face. Guilt surfaced within him again, but it was true, everything he had said. He was a messed up guy who needed to sort out his own problems before dragging someone else into them.

"Toothiana…" he said, walking towards her in three short strides and holding her close to him "I want you to be happy, and I know you won't be happy with me." He pulled her into his chest and hugged her close while she shook in his arms soaking his t-shirt with her tears. They stood like that for what seemed an eternity before Tooth finally said something.

"But Jack… Can I even trust you?" she splayed her hands on his chest and pushed him back with all the force she could manage. Jack barely had time to comprehend before he crashed into ice cold water which enveloped, froze and suffocated him…

And then he woke with a jerk, drenched in sweat but feeling bitterly cold as goose-bumps riddled his skin…