"Maybe we should get back," Jack Frost told Baby Tooth as he closed the window to Sophie's room, an abashed look on his face.
The two were about to start flying back to the Warren when they heard a young girl's voice call, "Jack."
North, Tooth, Bunny, and Sandy exchanged confused looks. What was going on?
Jack stopped, looking around in confusion while Baby Tooth flitted in the air nervously. "Jack?" the voice called again.
"Did you hear that?" Jack asked Baby Tooth, staring out across the land.
"Jack," the voice called urgently, and Jack took off towards it, Baby Tooth behind him.
The voice continued calling as Jack and Baby Tooth followed it, eventually ending up in the middle of a forest. In the center of a small clearing stood a rotting bed frame, the source of the noise.
"Is that the entrance to Pitch's lair?" Tooth said incredulously, staring at the old rotted frame. Nobody else said anything, and the memory continued.
Baby Tooth pulled on Jack's hoodie, trying to get him to turn back. "Don't worry, there's still time," Jack said distractedly as he walked towards the bed frame. Baby Tooth rolled her eyes but followed him.
Under the bed frame was a hole, completely dark and seemingly bottomless. Jack broke away the rotting wood above the hole and stared down into it, trying to find the bottom.
"Jack?" the voice called one more time, and Jack jumped in the hole, Baby Tooth behind him.
"That curiosity's gonna get him killed one day," Bunny remarked tonelessly.
Jack and Baby Tooth found themselves in a massive cave. Baby Tooth tried again to get Jack to turn back, sensing danger. "Baby Tooth, come on, I have to find out what that is," Jack insisted as he ventured further in the cave.
The sound of tweeting pulled Jack's attention to one of the large cages hanging from the ceiling. Inside were hundred of the baby tooth fairies trying in vain to escape.
Tooth gasped, staring in horror at the cages. "How dare he?" she whispered, shocked that even Pitch would be so cruel to such innocent creatures.
"Hang on guys, I'm gonna get you out, just as soon as-" "Jack," "-I can," Jack said looking again for the source of the voice. Baby Tooth twittered hurriedly, trying to get Jack to open the cages.
Jack found mountains of tooth containers, holding countless memories, among which was presumably his. He dove into the pile, grabbing containers at random and checking the faces printed on the ends.
"Looking for something?" a silky voice oozed from the shadows. Jack spun around, shooting ice from his staff before flying off towards the source of the voice. Pitch's laughter echoed off the walls.
The Guardians exchanged nervous looks. Even though they knew the outcome and knew Jack was alright now, this situation was terrifying.
"Don't be afraid Jack," Pitch said as he strolled down a slanted corridor.
"Afraid? I'm not afraid of you," Jack said as he fell against a wall.
"Maybe not. But you are afraid of something."
"You think so, huh?"
Pitch turned around. "I know so. It's the one thing I always know. People's greatest fears," Pitch grinned at Jack. "Yours is that no one will ever believe in you." Pitch started walking toward Jack, who stepped back in shock. He had never told anyone that. Pitch laughed again as Jack fell through the floor and into the darkness.
Bunny shifted uncomfortably. He knew Jack didn't have any believers before, but that had never seemed to bother the fun-loving trouble maker before. What else was Jack hiding beneath the laughter?
"And worst of all, you're afraid you'll never know why." Jack stood up, jumping away from the darkness and into another corridor, back against the wall in fear. "Why you? Why were you chosen to be like this?"
It pained Tooth to know Jack had been left wondering for so long. She had never heard of an immortal losing their memories; it never even crossed her mind that Jack might need his.
Pitch materialized in front of Jack, holding out a memory container. "But fear not. For the answer to that is right here." The container had a picture of a brown-haired boy with a mischievous grin. Jack stared at it, his face a mixture of fear and shock.
Sandy watched with interest. The only reason Jack originally agreed to help the Guardians was to regain his memories. But was he willing to trust Pitch to just give them to him, without a reason?
"Do you want them Jack? Your memories?" Pitch grinned at the look of yearning on Jack's face. Jack reached out, about to touch it, when he seemed to reconsider. Pitch and the container disappeared, Pitch's laugh echoing in the shadows. Jack ran down the corridors, towards Pitch.
"Everything you wanted to know, in this little box." Jack chased the shadows. "Why did you end up like this? Unseen. Unable to reach out to anyone."
North watched the scene with mounting guilt. It wasn't until recently that he learned of Jack's attempted break-ins at his Workshop. How many times had Jack tried to get his attention only to be turned away? Jack was still a kid, and the Guardians were supposed to protect kids. But they had failed Jack for three hundred years.
"You want the answers so badly. You want to grab them and fly off with them, but you're afraid of what the Guardians will think, afraid of disappointing them." Pitch's voice echoed off the walls, merged with the shadows surrounding Jack, confusing him. "Well, let me ease your mind about one thing: They'll never accept you. Not really."
"Stop it, STOP IT!" Jack screamed, trying to cover his ears with his hands.
All of the Guardians stared in shock at Jack's reaction. Sure, they might not have been the most accommodating, but did Jack really think they didn't want him? Still? And did he really care that much about what they thought of him? Sure, it might have taken them a while, but the Guardians did eventually accept Jack. Didn't he know that?
"After all, you're not one of them," Pitch said, materializing behind Jack.
"You don't know what I am." Jack spun around, raising his staff to point at Pitch.
"Of course I do, you're Jack Frost!" Pitch mocked. "You make a mess wherever you go. Why, you're doing it right now," Pitch said as he tossed something at Jack. Instinctively, Jack caught the memory box that landed in his hands. His memory box. He stared at it in shock, and then, with dawning horror, he looked up at Pitch.
The Guardians watched the scene like one might watch a train wreck: horrified, but unable to look away. Their trepidation was only added to when they remembered what happened next.
"What did you do?" Jack asked in horror.
"More to the point Jack, what did you do?" Pitch grinned as he held open his arms, melting back into the shadows and laughing.
Jack ran after him, shooting frost at him, before he realized he had lost Pitch. Jack turned around, only to find himself facing a locked door.
He banged against it. "Baby Tooth!" he shouted in panic.
"Happy Easter, Jack." Jack spun around, looking for Pitch when he stepped on something. Looking down, he could see broken eggshells littering the ground.
"No," he said in shock, running down the trail towards the Guardians.
Nobody said anything. Maybe there just wasn't anything that could be said, not now, not after so many weeks had past. The Guardians knew Jack was impulsive and reckless; his curiosity was what allowed Bunny to capture him first, his irresponsibility what made them cautious of having Jack be a Guardian. Why had it never crossed their minds, of course Jack wouldn't betray them on purpose.
Jack found the Guardians in a small town in England, late and short one Baby Tooth.
Tooth was furious. "Where's Baby Tooth? Oh Jack, what have you done?"
"That is why you weren't here?" North asked. "You were with Pitch instead?"
"No, listen, listen… I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen," Jack tried to explain.
Jack would never sabotage Easter at a time when it was so important, he would never betray Baby Tooth for his memories. All of this was so obvious in retrospect, but at the time they were all too hurt, too confused to listen to and explanation.
Bunny hopped over. "He has to go," he said without hesitation.
Jack was stunned. "What?"
Sandy looked as surprised as Jack, staring at Bunny with a combination of confusion and accusation.
Bunny looked heartbroken as he said, "We should never have trusted you. Easter is new beginnings, new life. Easter is about hope." He groaned. "And now it's gone."
Jack turned from Bunny to look at Tooth and North. They both turned away from him. It was exactly as Pitch had warned. The Guardians didn't want him around anymore.
Bunny, Tooth, and North had trouble watching the memory. They were ashamed now of what they had done, of turning away Jack when they needed each other the most. They had let their feelings get in the way, just as Jack had done when he entered Pitch's lair. And now they had to pay.
Reaching into his pocket, Jack pulled out the little Russian doll North had given him in the Workshop. He stared at it for a long moment, then tossed the doll to the ground. Jack created a big gust of wind and then leaped in to the breeze.
Sandy was frozen in shock as he watched Jack fly away, the others not even calling out to him, trying to stop him. Sandy's confusion morphed into rage as he glared accusingly at his fellow Guardians, none of who could meet his gaze.
Soon Jack found himself on the top of a mountain in Antarctica, a place where it always snowed. A place where the blizzards caused by his mood mingled with the blizzards of nature, as indistinguishable as a teardrop in the rain.
Jack ran to the edge of the cliff, ready to throw his memories off the edge, when he stopped. He looked down at the box in his hand, at the memories he had been waiting so long to find.
"I thought this might happen," Pitch said suddenly. Jack looked up in shock and horror. When had Pitch gotten here? How did he know where to find him? It didn't matter; Jack found his surprise being quickly replaced by anger.
"They never really believed in you. I was just trying to show you that. But I understand." Jack spun around throwing a powerful burst of ice from his staff and screaming with unbridled rage.
"You don't understand anything!" he screamed, throwing more ice at Pitch.
Pitch blocked Jack's frost with nightmare sand, frustration plain on his face. "I don't know what it's like to be cast out?" he screamed, throwing out more nightmare sand.
Jack leaped in the air, screaming as he lashed out with his most powerful hit yet. Pitch blocked it with equally powerful sand, creating a cloud of sand and ice.
"To not be believed in?" Jack spun around, only to find Pitch unarmed and seemingly defenseless. "To long for a family?" Jack seemed surprised by this sudden vulnerability, lowering his staff.
The Guardians were also surprised, but for different reasons. Pitch typically went with straight forward fear factors, preferring them to pity appeals. Unlike Jack, though, the Guardians remained wary, seeing Pitch's words as a trap.
"All those years in the shadows, I thought no one else knows what this feels like. But now I see I was wrong," Pitch said, gesturing towards Jack. Jack stood from his defensive stance, as if seeing Pitch in a new light.
The Guardians were nervous. Did Jack really believe Pitch? It was low, for Pitch to use Jack's fears against him like that.
"We don't have to be alone, Jack. I believe in you," Pitch said as he began circling Jack, who seemed deep in thought. "And I know children will too." At this Jack looked up at Pitch, hope and longing written clearly on his face. "In me?"
"Yes! Look at what we can do," Pitch said as he gestured to the result of their fight. An ice sculpture made of spikes and darkened by nightmare sand.
"What goes together better than cold and dark? We'll make them believe! We'll give them a world where everything, every thing is-"
"Pitch black?" Pitch froze, as if realizing his mistake.
"And Jack Frost, too. They'll believe in both of us."
"No, they'll fear both of us. And that's not what I want," Jack said, turning away. "Now for the last time, leave me alone!"
"So what, what are you going to do, Jack?" Pitch asked acrimoniously. "Are you going to go back to the Guardians? You've already seen, they don't want you."
Jack stopped walking, but didn't turn around. He clenched his staff tight in his hands.
"They're only using you, Jack. You can't possibly think that they'll ever care about you. They only want you to help defeat me. And if it wasn't for the Man in the Moon, the same Moon that ignored you for centuries, they never would have contacted you."
Jack didn't say anything, didn't try to argue any of what Pitch said, because it was true, wasn't it?
"If it wasn't for MiM, they would have continued ignoring you like they did for the past three hundred years. And after this battle, what makes you think they won't ignore you again? They don't like you, don't want you, they just want to use you. Why would they want a trouble-making, chaotic winter spirit, bringer of cold and death. Your powers are not good, Jack, and they know it. Why do you think they always left you alone, if it wasn't because you were a volatile teenager that they didn't want to have to deal with. The only kid in the world that they wouldn't protect. They've never helped you; why should you help them?"
Jack didn't say anything, didn't move. He had that same look on his face that he had when Bunny told him no one would ever believe in him; the look that suggested he wanted to argue, but knew Bunny was right. Pitch was right. The look that said he wanted to crack a joke, brush off the situation, but was running out of fun to hide behind.
The Guardians were frozen, horrified. They knew that they hadn't treated Jack very well before, but they never thought, never realized... They had never heard it all laid out like that, so plain, so awful. And the worst part was, Jack believed Pitch. What Pitch said about the past, about the neglect and abandonment, may have been correct, but now Pitch was telling Jack that the Guardians still didn't care about him. And Jack believed him. There was no evidence to suggest otherwise.
Pitch finished his speeck. "If you want to back to them, then fine. You want to be left alone? Done! But before I go..."
Jack wheeled around in horror as he heard a familiar squeak. Clenched in Pitch's fist was Baby Tooth, struggling furiously.
"Baby Tooth!" Jack ran over to them, holding out his staff to fight even while his puffy red eyes suggested he didn't know what he was fighting for.
"The staff, Jack!" Pitch said. Jack froze before looking down at his staff with a horror. "You have a bad habit of interfering. Now hand it over, and I'll let her go."
Baby Tooth tweeted desperately, shaking her head. Jack held up his staff again, but couldn't think of what to do. The Guardians may have abandoned him, but Baby Tooth was innocent, she had never done anything wrong. And it was Jack's fault that Pitch had her now. Jack lowered his staff, considering, as Pitch's fist tightened around Baby Tooth. He finally turned over his staff, offering it to Pitch. Pitch grabbed the staff, whose frost immediately gave way to black.
The Guardians were shocked once again. After everything Pitch had said, everything Jack thought about them, he was still willing to try and save Baby Tooth? To offer up his staff, the one constant in his life, presumably the source of his powers, for her?
"Alright. Now let her go," Jack said, holding out his hand.
"No," Pitch said dryly. Jack stared at him in horror, not expecting this betrayal.
"You said you wanted to be alone. So be alone!" Pitch screamed.
Baby Tooth took this moment of distraction to stab Pitch's thumb with her beak. Pitch let out a cry of shock, hurtling Baby Tooth against the side of a mountain.
Tooth gasped at the same time that Jack screamed.
"No!" Jack cried in horror, watching Baby Tooth slam into the mountain.
He turned around just in time to see Pitch snap his staff in half, sending a shooting pain through his chest. With an anguished cry, Jack doubled over, only to be picked up and thrown into the same mountain as Baby Tooth by the nightmare sand.
Tooth froze in shock and pain. North looked away for a moment, an immense look of guilt clouding his face. Bunny and Sandy continued to watch the memory with mounting dread and fear.
Jack hit the mountain hard, darkness clouding his vision as he began to fall.
He let out another cry as he hit the bottom.
Tooth started crying. Sandy created images too fast for anyone to comprehend, not that anyone was paying attention.
Pitch looked down at Jack, laughing as he threw the broken pieces of Jack's staff down with him. The staff was now as useless as Jack himself.
Jack laid at the bottom of the crack in the mountain, his body aching all over. Eventually he pushed himself up off the ground, holding his head, when he heard a squeak.
The Guardians were astounded at both Jack's and Baby Tooth's resilience.
"Baby Tooth!" Jack crawled over to her. "You alright?" Baby Tooth was shivering badly and her wings appeared to be broken. Jack tried to cup her in his hands, trying to warm her up, when she squeaked again.
He looked down at her. She shivered once more, then sneezed violently. Jack sighed. "Sorry, bad idea," he said, holding Baby Tooth away. "All I can do is keep you cold." He stared down at Baby Tooth, who was still shivering. "Pitch was right, I make a mess of everything."
Nobody knew what to say to that. Jack was always so confident, so self assured. The Guardians knew that Jack wasn't happy all the time- nobody was, not even the Guardian of Fun. But they hadn't realized Jack had so little faith in himself, that he doubted himself at all. Sometimes, after a particularly harmful blizzard, Bunny questioned whether Jack was capable of guilt or remorse at all. Seeing him now, it was apparent that confidence was a cover up in the same way that fun was often a distraction, allowing Jack to forget about anything negative he was feeling.
Baby Tooth stared at Jack for a second and shivered, before getting an idea. She hopped out of Jack's hands and onto his jacket, crawling into the pocket. Jack sighed again and leaned against the side of the mountain, closing his eyes.
Baby Tooth tweeted as a voice, the same voice from before, called out: "Jack." Jack shot upright, scurrying back in shock as his pocket, or rather, something inside his pocket, began to glow a brilliant gold.
He pulled his memory container out of his pocket, Baby Tooth hopping next to it. She looked down at the box and then to Jack, nodding. Jack hesitated before reaching out, brushing his fingers along the top of the box.
The memory faded.