Author's Notes: Thank you guys so, so much for all of the comments. The response to this fic has just been amazing.
I am still deciding whether or not this will be the last chapter, actually. It depends on whether or not I decide I want to go ahead with the rest of what I have planned, basically, or if I end up convincing myself that this is a better stopping point.
Broken Glass to Sweep Away- Chapter 3
"They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves."
-Robert Frost, "Birches"
Jack had never known any place more completely than this one. He knew the whole of it: the ridges in the ice-crusted metal beneath him and the way the cavern extended far beyond sight, its ceiling hidden in shadow. He knew the way the darkness danced when you did not look at it directly, movement that was never quite there. He knew the shapes of the cages that dangled in the stillness, their lines like saplings half-obscured by a chill morning's mist.
But more than all of that, Jack knew the silence. He knew the ache of it that grew inside like a bruise until he spoke just to be rid of it, his own voice and no other, rising in fits and starts into the stillness. He knew the ring of it in his ears, a hush not unlike the way fresh snow muffled the sounds of the world. He knew the words that he repeated to himself to break it, a desperate search for conviction: "They're coming. They are."
Occasionally, he caught a glimpse of Pitch walking past far below, a black shape in a world that had become only blackness. The Nightmare King, true to his word, did not so much as glance Jack's way.
Food became a fascination, long taken for granted but sorely missed, now that it was gone.
Jack was a creature of impulse – had become accustomed to helping himself to what he wanted when he wanted it, for with none to see him, there had been no one to protest. The boy had snitched pies from windowsills, pocketed roast chestnuts from street stalls, filched loaves of bread from unobservant shoppers that turned too long from their purchases.
He had delighted in the food he took in much the same way he delighted in the chaotic whirl of a perfect day's sledding: it had drawn him closer to the people he watched over. Amid a vast collection of things he could not do, Jack had been able to share in this one, at least.
Now, when most he needed simple comforts, this too was denied him. He grew no thinner, showed no ill effects, but he found that the creeping hold of hunger settled upon him all the same. In Jack's spare moments – and there were many - he found himself thinking of his mother's lamb stew, so recently remembered. He found himself recalling that North had offered him fruitcake, once upon a time.
It seemed unthinkable to him now that he had refused.
Below him there were footsteps, and Jack roused himself from where he slumped against the side of the cage. He ached from being immobile for so long, but for the first time in – weeks? months? – a surge of conviction blazed through him. He seized the bars and dragged himself shakily to his feet, clenched them so tightly that his knuckles ached.
"Hey!" the boy called. "Hey, Pitch!" The effort hurt his throat; it had been a long time since he had last spoken to anyone but himself, longer still since he had needed to raise his voice above a whisper.
The footsteps did not slow. They did not even waver, and Jack felt something very like panic grip him. "Wait," he called. "Wait – just look-"
But Pitch was gone.
The boy ran the tips of his fingers over the ice, and he remembered drawing swirls of frost on window panes as though it was a dream from a distant life. He remembered leaving icicles like shining crystal hanging from the eaves - the way a snowball felt in his hands, packed and ready. He remembered the icy surface of a pond slick beneath bare feet, the way the wind rushed past his ears as he slipped across the ice, careless and free.
On snow days, the children had shrieked and laughed. The world had been alive with the crump of snow beneath their boots; the air had steamed with their breath.
One night, in a child's darkened room, he had brought a creature all of cold to life. He had called the snow where snow should not be, white and soft, dancing slowly downward. Jaime's face, eyes alight and mouth open, was the most beautiful thing Jack had ever seen. His voice, speaking Jack's name, was a benediction.
The winter spirit had thought he knew joy before that moment, but what flared then, hot and bright as the sun inside him, had eclipsed it all. The words of that little boy had been everything to him, everything he'd ever wanted. The world had been set at his feet, full of a glimmering hope he had never known.
Looking back, tears frozen into tracts that he no longer bothered to scrape away, it seemed now a child's fancy – impossibly perfect.
He told himself stories the way he recalled once having spun fairytales for his sister. The Guardians were delayed, he assured himself, because they could not find the entrance to the boogeyman's lair. They were delayed because Pitch had begun a new campaign against the children of the world. They were delayed because boys and girls lost teeth every night, and hundreds of thousands of eggs were needed each Easter, and there were elves to keep from trouble. They were delayed—but they were coming.
Belief, Jack had always known, was a powerful thing. It was, perhaps, the most powerful thing - and bit by bit, his slipped away. What had begun as conviction became riddled with slivers of doubt, and like an open wound left too long without care, the infection spread.
The Guardians had not come, his mind whispered, because they were not looking.
They had not come because he was not missed.
Perhaps North had wondered why this year's Christmas was not white. Perhaps Bunny had enjoyed the unseasonably warm weather. But if it had crossed their minds to search for the boy that brought the winter, they had not acted on it. In their busy lives, he was nothing worth noting – nothing worth fighting for.
The Nightmare King's words burned like acid when he thought too hard about them. They wormed their way into the stories he told himself, and the standards for a happy ending were whittled down, piece by piece. Daydreams of a rescue flickered and faded. The things he whispered to himself in the dark to keep up hope were adjusted by degrees.
He could not promise himself that the Guardians were coming. He could not promise that they had wanted him at all. Instead, Jack told himself that they had felt his absence, if only in small ways. He told himself that they had perhaps spoken of him, once or twice.
He told himself that this was enough.
The footsteps came, and Jack lurched and staggered, grasped the cage and hauled himself, with effort, to his feet. His strength had gone; his limbs shook, now, when he extended himself too far.
"Pitch!" His voice was a bird with a broken wing, weak and erratic. "Wait!" But there was no change in the pace of the footfalls below. He could just make out the man's form gliding through the shadows, stately and unaffected.
"Wait!" the spirit of winter called again, and he shook the bars with all the strength that remained him. A shuddering breath hitched in. "You were right. Please don't – please."
The Nightmare King reached the archway that led from the chamber, and Jack heaved in another breath. "They're not coming!" he wailed.
It hung in the air like the perfect, crystalline moment of sunrise on an icy morning. It pierced the stillness like spun glass breaking. And the boogeyman, rapture upon rapture, stopped.
"You were right," Jack sobbed, collapsing in relief to his knees. He did not want to close his eyes – did not want to risk that when he opened them, Pitch would be gone.
"You were right," he said again, earnest and broken, scarcely coherent. The thought that the man might be listening to him filled Jack with a gratitude so vast that he felt he would not be able to breathe.
But Pitch did not reply. He was fading from view, melting away like a nightmare in the morning's light.
"No," Jack gasped. "Please – I can't -" The boy's mind reeled in horror; in desperation, he forced one arm through the bars as far as it would go. He reached until his muscles burned with the effort and the skin of his shoulder, flush against the metal, began to bruise. "Pitch!"
There was panic in his voice; terror thrummed through his body like a breaking storm. "Pitch!"
No answer came. All around, the stillness of the cavern pressed in on him. It pounded in his ears, clutched at his chest, rose like the bile in the back of his throat.
Alone in the dark, Jack screamed until his voice gave out.
In time the spirit of winter did not rise anymore, when the boogeyman passed beneath him. He lay curled upon the bottom of his cage, and he listened to the footsteps, and he did not wonder whether they would stop.
He did not beg the Nightmare King to look at him. Did not cry and plead and bargain. Did not entreat him, "Just once."