Jack woke up in stages. He opened his eyes, first, but he just couldn't get his eyes to focus properly, and everything looked like a blur. Slowly, he started to hear snippets of a conversation – Tooth's voice, and the gentle tinkling of Sandy's dreamsand slip-sliding over each other. Jack became aware of the deep ache in his bones then, and for a second he was afraid that he'd lost his powers altogether. He tried to sit up, but his arms were too weak to support him.
"Oh!" He heard Tooth say, and then small hands were helping him sit up against the pillows.
Finally, the world came into focus, and Jack blinked a few times to see both Sandy and Tooth staring at him with twin looks of concern. His staff was propped up in the corner.
"Jack? You with us?" Tooth asked him. Jack tried to nod. Tooth smoothed out the wrinkles in his sweatshirt, and put a hand to his forehead. "You still feel a little warm," she said, her forehead creased in worry. Sandy nudged her aside to put his hand against Jack's forehead, too, and frowned.
"You need soup!" Tooth declared. Jack wasn't feeling particularly hungry, but before he could protest, Tooth was already presenting him with a bowl of soup – icy cold, just the way he liked it.
"I made it for you," she said, feathers puffed up in pride. "Taste it!"
Jack thought about being difficult, but that seemed like too much work. He took the bowl. Sandy and Tooth watched him eat, as if to make sure that not a single, frozen spoonful of soup went to waste. It was kind of making Jack's teeth hurt, but he made sure to finish it all. He was pretty sure that if he didn't, Tooth would start pulling out an IV drip.
"There," he said, and showed them his empty bowl. "Happy?"
Sandy took it, and then flipped it upside down and shook it. He shot a thumbs up to Tooth, who then pried open Jack's mouth to check for…hidden soup, or something. Inspection complete, she pulled back and chirped, "Very!"
Jack rolled his eyes. "Are you going to tell me what's going on, now?"
Tooth and Sandy exchanged looks. Before either of them could speak, the door slipped open, and North slowly poked his head round the corner.
"Tooth! Sandy!" He whispered. His brow was furrowed with the effort of speaking quietly, and he seemed to forget to keep his voice down halfway through his sentences. "I have called Seraphina, but she said, 'Too busy for chit-chat'!"
"Seraphina?" Jack said. North jumped and nearly hit his head on the doorframe.
"Jack! You are awake!" He exclaimed, overjoyed, and then clapped both hands over his mouth.
Tooth sighed, but it was more affectionate than annoyed. "You don't have to whisper now, North," she said.
"Are you certain? I do not mind keeping my 'inside voice'," North offered. He was already speaking at his normal volume.
As the three bickered, Jack glanced around the room. It was the room that North had given him when he became a Guardian, cluttered with toys and books that North thought he might like. But, for some reason, the desk and side table had been cleared of North's creations, and were stacked high with medical supplies and first aid kits. Jack could feel bandages wrapped around his chest, a dull pain all over. Most importantly…"Where's Bunny?" Jack interrupted.
The three Guardians exchanged glances. They seemed to not know what to say, but that only happened when something really bad had happened and they were trying to shield him from the worst of it. Jack wasn't a child, though, he was a Guardian, and he deserved to know what was going on without being coddled!
"Where is he?" Jack demanded. "Why aren't you answering my questions? What happened to him?" He swung his legs over the side of the bed, and the Guardians immediately leapt to restrain him.
"Calm down, Jack, Bunnymund is fine," Tooth soothed, and Jack glared at her.
"Then tell me what's going on!"
Finally, Tooth nodded, and sat down gracefully at the edge of his bed. North and Sandy shuffled closer, looking somber. "What do you remember from the day you came to the Pole?" Tooth asked him.
Jack opened his mouth to speak, and then frowned. What should've been a clear memory was distorted and discoloured, and the longer he waited the more the memory of that night corroded away. "Last night…I know I was being chased, but I can't remember where I was. I'd been waiting for the meeting. With Mother Nature. We – the seasonals, I mean – were supposed to have a meeting with Mother Nature but it never happened. I remember thinking about how strange that was, that Mother Nature didn't call us for the meeting. She's done it since before I was around, even. I thought that was strange."
Tooth glanced back at North and Sandy, then turned back to Jack. "Bunnymund's fine," she repeated. "But you've been out cold for two weeks, now."
Jack's jaw dropped. Before he could get a word in edgewise, Tooth continued talking. "While you were asleep, we did some digging of our own, and we think there's something going on with Mother Nature as well." She paused, mulling over her next words. "Bunnymund was supposed to track down the other three seasonals to get some answers, but out of the three he only found one."
"Autumn." North said.
"Right. Autumn is here at the Pole, but he's in bad shape."
"And Spring and Summer?" Jack asked, but dread had already crept like frost up the back of his throat. He knew what Tooth was going to say, and yet he couldn't bear to even think it.
Tooth hesitated. "They're dead. I'm sorry, Jack."
A gust of air left Jack's lungs and he slumped back into his pillows. Dead. Of course everyone knew that nature spirits weren't technically immortal, since they could still be killed, but it didn't happen often, and definitely not to seasonal spirits. Jack had never gotten along with the others, but that didn't mean that he wanted to see them dead. The Spring and Summer that he'd known had been around for over a thousand years, and now they were just gone? Jack swallowed, and Sandy patted his hand sympathetically.
"How?" He asked, but Tooth was already shaking her head before he could even form the word.
"We don't know. It had to be someone or something really powerful, but…" She shook her head again, and sighed. "They were so young, too."
They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence, the shock of the deaths of two seasonals and the added confusion weighing heavily on Jack's mind. He realized, suddenly, that instead of Spring and Summer, it could've been Jack. If the wind had been even a second slower…
There was a gentle knock on the half-open door, and Jack looked up to see Bunnymund crouched in the doorway. For a split second, relief flooded through his system and washed away everything else he was feeling.
"Bunny!" He said. He coughed, and then said, lowering his voice, "Bunny."
"Jack." Bunnymund greeted. The smell of smoke was woven lightly into his fur, and Jack wrinkled his nose. "Glad to see you hopping about."
"Not quite," Jack said. "But thanks."
"How is our guest?" North asked the Pooka. He had folded his arms across his chest like a fifties' mob boss, but his eyebrows were furrowed in concern. Jack had completely forgotten that Autumn was at the North Pole, and immediately felt shame creep hot up the back of his neck. Autumn had been a lot closer to Spring and Summer than Jack had been, and he was no doubt suffering greatly. Jack couldn't be so self-centered.
"He's doing as well as one can be in this kind of situation," Bunnymund said. He fixed his green eyes on Jack. "He wants to see you."
