North paced silently back and forth in front of the fire place, one hand stroking his long beard, worry creasing his features, eyes flickering to the other guardians as what he had told them sunk in.
"He's ill?" Bunny questioned, doubt lingering in his voice. "He cant be ill,he's immortal." He shifted his weight from one leg to the other as a paw smoothed down the fur on his ears.
"Obviously is not true. He appears dizzy then faints almost every time he stands, eyes are clouded and dull, skin red, temperature almost at that of a human..." North listed off Jack's symptoms, counting them off on his hand.
"But he's going to be alright, isn't he?" Toothiana whispered the words so quickly everyone had to concentrate to properly understand her.
"We can only hope so." The large man then resumed his pacing.
"He's going to be fine." An australian accent pierced the air, a determined edge to it, the three other guardians turned to Bunny. "We'll bring him down here, put him on the sofa, put out the fire, open the windows, make it nice and freezing cold for him and he can sleep it off." He shrugged, trying to make it seem like a miracle cure to the unknown illness Jack had gotten himself.
North nodded slowly.
"Is worth a try." He smoothed a hand over his hair. "I'll bring him down." With that, the man strode through the large building and up to the highest point where his bedroom was nestled into a barely noticeable wooden door. The door swung open with a slight creak which he once again reminded himself to fix.
On a bed of simple red cloth and blankets, Jack lay asleep, hair slick on his forehead, clothing damp with sweat despite the large windows being open allowing the biting cold and snow in. He shook the boy's shoulder.
"Jack, you must come downstairs." He whispered.
"'Kay." Jack groaned but despite that, simply closed his eyes again. A slight smile graced North's lips at that. He slowly lifted the boy to a sitting position and pulled his legs to rest his feet on the ground, to his relief Jack stood, leaning heavily on the older's side. North wrapped one arm around him to help him keep upright as they walked.
By the time they reached the main room, Jack's head had rolled and landed on North's chest as though it was simply too heavy for his neck to hold upright. North had had to practically carry the boy most of the way. Neither acknowledged the guardians worried and shocked faces, in North's case, he simply didn't want to, and in Jack's case, he had fallen asleep on his feet and had to be picked up and laid down on the sofa.
Once Jack had settled, curled up into a cushion, North turned to the guardians.
"He has been like this for three days now..." He looked at the three of them but was distracted by Tooth's intent stare at Jack.
"Is his hair darker than usual?" She fluttered over to the sleeping boy and stroked his head, smiling slightly as he sighed at the contact. Then her expression turned to worry as she noticed both his change in temperature and the roots of his hair. She pulled the front of his hair up and away from his face and gasped.
"Its turning brown." North, Sandy and Bunny were there in an instant to confirm that what the fairy was saying was true. Sandy tapped his chin with one finger before an eye appeared over his head. Tooth nodded and turned to Jack.
"Jack, honey, can you open your eyes for me?" Sluggishly, his eyes opened to reveal his blue eyes tainted by a ring of brown around his pupil. At the worried expressions, Jack was more alert.
"What? What's wrong." His voice was raspy and slurred.
"Its probably nothing, so don't panic, but your eyes and your hair..." Tooth searched for an elegant way to put it, first syllables of words coming out before Bunny stepped in.
"They're going brown." Tooth frowned at him before Jack in his sleepy daze, murmured the first thing that entered his mind.
"Like they were when I was human?" He closed his eyes again.
"It would seem so..." North muttered. Sandy created an image of a book above his head, pages turning quickly.
"Research! Yes, good idea Sandy!" North shouted so loud that Jack jumped, eyes wide in a comical expression.
"North!" Tooth scolded before patting Jack's head, encouraging him to relax.
"My apologies, perhaps Sandy, Bunny and I had better go while you stay here and look after him." Tooth nodded, her motherly ways already making themselves known as she knelt by Jack's head and she began pulling her fingers through his sweaty hair, smoothing it out of his face and inadvertently showing that a good inch of each strand was now brown. She scarcely noticed that the three men had left.
She sat there for over an hour, chewing her lip as she could easily see the brown creeping up each pure white strand of hair. She wanted desperately for him to open his eyes and let her see if his eyes had progressively become darker the way his hair had but she refrained and tried to think of something else.
She tried to wonder how baby tooth was doing filling in as her, she tried to wonder how the men were getting along with their research, she tried to wonder if it was cool enough, but all that went out the window as Jack shivered. A spirit of winter shivering? Worry flooded every corner of her mind as she fluttered nearer, almost fainting when fully brown eyes met hers.
"Tooth, 'm cold." She nodded and attempted to calm herself for him as she flew to each window and shut them, then gathered a blanket from another chair and spread it over him, she rubbed his upper arm through the blanket as he snuggled further down into the blanket, a soft sigh and easy grin made it obvious he was comfortable, his eyes remained open but now that they were, Tooth almost wished he would just close them again, the terror a different eye colour brought to her was unimaginable. They weren't supposed to be that way, they were supposed to be blue. Ice blue.
Despite her worry, she smiled at the slightly delirious boy.
"How do you feel?" her voice jumped at the end as the rest of his white hair turned a dark chestnut brown, but she tried to mask it.
"Better. Where's all the everyone else?" His voice was dreamy and slurred, accented with a slight giggle.
"They're in the library." As she said it, she moved to sit on the edge of the sofa where Jack lay, her hand rubbing circles on his upper back.
"I didn't know cottontail had a library card..." He murmured as he rubbed his eye and giggled. Tooth didn't know weither to be relieved his illness was easing off, or worried by his silly response.
"No, he doesn't dear, they're all in North's library." She smiled as realisation dawned on him and he burst into a fit of giggles. It was at that moment the three men re-entered the room, hands empty and faces full of stress.
"Nothing. All those books and nothing!" North exclaimed, looking down at his feet. Since no-one was currently paying him any attention, Jack decided -in his foggy mind- to speak to them.
"Hey North! North! North!" The man looked at the giggling heap of brown hair wrapped in a dark red blanket in faint amusement.
"Yes, Jack?"
"North! North! Why do you have a beard?" His entire upper body flew up in place and Tooth pushed him back down.
"Because it was crawling along the ground one day when it saw me and attacked my face then just never let go." Jack's mind-blown expression was beyond hilarious and in any other situation, North would have laughed, but the deep rooted worry for the boy, although it was weakened by the child's antics, still held his mind.
"Hey, Bunny!" He shouted overly loudly as the three took their seats.
"Yeah, Snowflake?" Jack frowned.
"I'm not a snowflake, you are!" He shouted with conviction. Bunny simply shook his head, smiling.
"Alright, whatever you say, I'm a snowflake." This brought on a new round of giggles from Jack.
"Don't be stupid bun-bun. You're a rabbit, not a snowflake." Then he became a giggling mess again as Bunny rubbed his eyes.
"Sandy! Sandy! Are you actually made of sand?" Sandy nodded, a grin on his lips as he awaited Jack's idiotic response.
"Oh, man! Has anyone ever built you into a sandcastle?! Do you ever build yourself bigger muscles with sand?!" Sand made a big X over his head while shaking his head.
"Jack, I think it is for best that you go to sleep for a little while." North patted Sandy's shoulder as the boy shook his head wildly but then passed out as a ball of gold hit him.
"His hair and eyes turned completely brown a few minutes ago, right before he told me that he was cold." Tooth muttered quietly.
"We should ask Man in Moon. He must know something." Bunnymund stated, paw still on his forehead.