Sandy knew what it meant when Pitch's lair started to echo with quiet noises, the rustling of insects and drip of water replacing unnatural silence. He let the dreamsand tent collapse, no longer needing its protection as he wrapped both arms around Pitch's neck and held him tight; the nightmares had lost their original quarry, and seemed to have no interest in attacking Sandy, slinking away into the dark without a fight.
Sandy didn't chase them, barely registered that they had left.
"I don't want you to die," he had said. They weren't terrible last words, but he could have done so much better.
Sandy kissed Pitch's forehead, reshaped the dreamsand blanket into a stretcher, and lifted Pitch onto it carefully before letting him go, raising the stretcher from the black-stained floor. Sandy had no intention of leaving him in the dark.
.
The quiet felt wrong as Sandy carried Pitch up and out of the necropolis, occasionally touching a hand to Pitch's wrist to make sure he wasn't disappearing, hoping and hoping he'd feel warmth or a steady rhythm, anything that might prove his eyes wrong.
It wasn't until Sandy approached the shores of his island home that anger set in. It burned through his veins, fiercer by the second - anger at the nightmares, anger at the shadows, and more than anything else, anger at being left alone.
Sandy liked his fellow Guardians, even loved them in his own way, but Pitch was the only other person he knew who had ever felt homesick for space.
Sandy let the sands of his home sweep upwards, a spiralling tower forming that no mermaid could climb, and set Pitch down on its roof as gently as he could. The moon was not due to show its face for hours yet, but Sandy knew where it hid behind sunlit skies, turned away from Pitch to face it, his hands balled into fists.
"Give him back." Sandy held in the rest, if barely. I've earned this. Please. I don't care what he's done.
The moon had watched him over the years, a silent companion that had helped him when he needed it most, and Sandy had returned the favour to the best of his ability. He'd never asked for much.
Sandy kept his gaze steady despite having nothing to look for, no proof that the moon could hear him or see him while the sun still shone. It didn't matter; fear and grief tore at him with vicious claws, but he had never given before, and he did not mean to give up now.
.
A long, laboured gasp made Sandy turn around sharply, his limbs cold and heavy with shock, but his eyes working well enough to confirm that Pitch was breathing - white as a sheet and shivering, but breathing.
Sandy watched in disbelief as Pitch sat up, his robes still shredded but his skin intact, and his legs unsteady as he swapped from sitting to standing.
It took a moment for Sandy to realise Pitch favoured his left side when he stretched his legs with a quick walk.
It took a moment longer than that for him to breathe when Pitch snatched him up into a hug that bruised his arms.
Sandy had always trusted his grasp on reality before, but even as he hugged back, he didn't dare believe what he had seen when Pitch lifted him up.
Amber eyes.
.
It was a while before Kozmotis could speak without sobs of relief making him incoherent, but once he started asking questions he couldn't stop, sometimes stuttering as he cut off one question to start another. Sandy couldn't answer them fast enough; pauses in conversation only came when Kozmotis needed to breathe, or Sandy needed to think of a way to explain people and events from Pitch's recent history. Kozmotis' memories were fragmented and unreliable, and all too many of the stories Sandy knew thanks to Katherine sounded like the stuff of myths, but Kozmotis was willing to accept them for one detail.
His daughter had not died. She had transformed.
Sandy did not know how to begin introducing Kozmotis back to a world his shadow had terrorised, or how it might interfere with his duties as a Guardian, but the beauty of dreams lay in their being a gift rather than a guarantee.
He could make time for Kozmotis if he wanted to. Skipping one time zone for a night and spending the hour with Kozmotis instead would be no real hardship.
He'd waited centuries for a chance to see Kozmotis again, and he wasn't going to waste any second he could spend with Kozmotis now.
.
Sandy's routine adapted easily enough to accommodate Kozmotis, and Kozmotis appeared to be coping with the hours he had to spend alone. Sandy's home was far from short on reading material, books full of Katherine's stories providing details that Sandy had forgotten or hadn't thought immediately relevant, and the mermaids singing along the shores of the island were a calming influence.
Kozmotis sometimes had more questions when Sandy came back to see him, but other times he would sit quietly, listening to Sandy talking, or burying his head in a book while Sandy made him something to eat.
Sandy still wasn't sure what he could do for Kozmotis other than offer him a place to rest, but if that was all Kozmotis needed, he was more than happy to give it. He hadn't had someone to come home to since parting with Efreet in the Golden Age, and it felt like a blessing every time he walked into his home and found Kozmotis there, as if the universe hadn't come up with a thousand reasons Kozmotis shouldn't be alive.
.
Jack found out first. If any Guardian had to find out first, Sandy was glad for it to be Jack; Bunnymund had known Kozmotis, but Jack always hesitated before attacking, and that hesitation bought the seconds it took for Jack to notice the change of skin colour, the change of gait.
Jack didn't attack Kozmotis, but he did demand to know the details of what had happened - once from Kozmotis, and once from Sandy the second he arrived home.
Of course, courtesy of Baby Tooth having hitched a ride with Jack, by the time Sandy arrived home he also had to answer to Tooth as well. And North. And Bunnymund.
Answering would have been a lot easier if Bunnymund was a faster translator of sand speech, and if Kozmotis didn't make a habit of correcting Bunnymund's mistakes, but after struggling to find a way to explain Kozmotis was trustworthy without belittling their fear this was all a trick of Pitch's, Sandy simply pointed at Tooth and pointed at Kozmotis' mouth.
"Trust me," Sandy said to Kozmotis with an apologetic smile, though Bunnymund assumed Sandy meant that statement for everyone else gathered on the island.
Tooth narrowed her eyes before pushing down Kozmotis' lower lip with a finger, touching him as little as possible and scrutinising his incisors with care.
Kozmotis stared at Sandy wide-eyed, and Sandy winced, hating having to subject Kozmotis to this but knowing full well the others trusted Tooth's ability to read teeth better than any words Sandy could come up with. "This won't take long. I promise."
"They're different," Tooth said after a moment, looking away from Kozmotis' mouth with a puzzled frown, and cocking her head for Baby Tooth to come over and take a look. Baby Tooth nodded after a moment, looking even more confused than Tooth herself had been. "I've never seen anything like this," Tooth added, pulling her finger back and parting his lips with her thumbs so she could see further into his mouth. "These are Pitch's teeth but they're - not. Pitch's." Tooth let Kozmotis go, folding her arms across her chest. "I'm sorry, but I'm used to you trying to kill me."
Kozmotis didn't look particularly offended, more interested in rubbing a hand over his lips to rid them of the taste of Tooth's fingers. Sandy tried not to stare, but a blush crept over his cheeks anyway. "I understand. I heard what he did to you."
Tooth shrugged her shoulders. "He paid with a tooth. We're even."
Bunnymund snorted, but said nothing.
Sandy watched suspicion on the other Guardians' faces turn to discomfort, North resting one hand on his belly as if he were waiting for his gut to make a judgement for him. "Man in Moon saved your life. What do you mean to do with it?"
Sandy prepared to shoo everyone outside, protect Kozmotis from being questioned - they'd established he wasn't Pitch, that ought to be enough - but Kozmotis answered with barely a moment's hesitation, "Find my daughter and apologise."
He didn't specify what he meant to apologise for, but North's face as he nodded showed a depth of understanding Sandy wished he could share.
.
While at first the exchange between Kozmotis and the Guardians felt more like an interrogation than a conversation, the tension in the room eased up after a while thanks to everyone present making a habit of honesty. North had more talent in answering Kozmotis' questions than Sandy had, knowing when to soften a blow and when to be blunt. For all the suffering Pitch had caused, North was a noble warrior in his own heart, harbouring little resentment for the actions Kozmotis' body had taken while Pitch controlled it.
In turn, Kozmotis bore the scrutiny of North and the others better than Sandy would have hoped, but his weariness began to show through soon enough in the shadows under his eyes and the tightness of his lips. Sandy allowed a few grains of dreamsand to fall from the ceiling as a hint that everyone ought to leave, creating drooping eyelids and yawns, and shrugged when Tooth cast him a wary look.
"I think this is good news," North concluded at last, walking over to Kozmotis and clapping a hand down on his shoulder. "Tooth trusts your teeth, I trust my belly. Man in the Moon made the right choice."
Sandy's fingers itched with temptation to snatch North's hand away from Kozmotis, but he remained polite for Kozmotis' sake, forming a house shape over his head and a crescent moon above that before feigning a yawn.
North gave Sandy a smile despite the concern clear in his eyes, and Sandy was thankful for that small gesture; North could be overbearing at times, but he avoided mollycoddling those around him. They both knew the risk Sandy was taking in protecting Kozmotis.
North let Kozmotis' shoulder go and gestured for the others to follow him outside, leaving Sandy to breathe a sigh of relief and make himself a hot drink.
.
Kozmotis trailed him through to what was currently the kitchen, standing in the doorway and watching Sandy work.
Sandy wished he had the patience for elegant things like loose tea leaves and strainers, but he'd been around before tea bags came into common use and did not miss the fussiness of traditional brewing.
Guilt twisted his stomach a little as the silence between them stretched on, and Sandy interrupted it with, "I'm sorry for the interrogation."
"Don't apologise," Kozmotis said quietly. "I would have done the same."
Sandy couldn't argue with that, stirring sugar into his own tea and glancing at a serving tray before shrugging and handing Kozmotis' cup straight to him. He looked like he needed the tea a damn sight more than he needed the rituals surrounding it.
"I'll have to leave soon," Kozmotis said, his body language tense. It was almost strange to see him bearing himself like an adult when Pitch had been expressive to a child-like degree.
"I don't mind," Sandy lied, clutching his own cup of tea a little too tightly. "You can come back whenever you want. I don't mind you sleeping here."
Kozmotis flinched. "God, no. No more sleep." Sandy didn't say anything, but Kozmotis almost immediately gave an apologetic nod. "I mean no offense. I've dreamt long enough."
Sandy nodded, wishing he could argue the point of how his dreams differed from others, but knowing Kozmotis' discomfort at the idea of sleep was well-reasoned.
It was a peculiar "Good night" he wished Kozmotis as he left the kitchen, with dawn drawing close and the awareness that Kozmotis would not be sleeping.
.
Sandy had expected to find himself alone in his bedroom, but the white-haired elf perched on his windowsill defied those expectations. Tooth, North, and Bunnymund were long gone from the island, no hints of jasmine or vanilla on the air; Sandy wasn't sure what had made Jack linger, but he seemed pensive, watching the horizon where moonlit waters met a starry sky.
Sandy hopped up next to Jack, nudged the windowsill into widening a little so that they could sit together comfortably, and offered Jack a question mark.
Jack shrugged his shoulders, an embarrassed little smile on his face. "It's nothing, really."
Sandy begged to differ, poked Jack in the arm and offered another question mark, followed by the silhouette of Pitch's face. Kozmotis', now, but Sandy had some intuition as to who was responsible for Jack's mood, if not how or why they had caused it.
"Kozmotis really isn't Pitch, is he?" Jack stated as much as asked; Sandy nodded anyway. "I just - I'd hoped Pitch could be helped. He was lonely, lonelier than me, I think. Maybe if I'd listened to him -"
Sandy shook his head fiercely, poked Jack in the side to make sure Jack saw. He didn't mind Jack thinking he would miss Pitch - Sandy knew full well how magnetic Pitch had been, how easy it was to slip up and like or even trust him - but he would not let Jack take the blame for his disappearance. All of the Guardians had watched Pitch be dragged down, and the creatures that had hurt Pitch were of his own making.
Jack laid his staff across his lap, frost gathered fiercely through its centre, and touched his fingers to the point where it had once been split. "I'd be alone without Pitch. I had the choice of joining you guys or him, and I wouldn't have had it without him."
Sandy couldn't think of an argument against Jack's point and opted instead to grab one of Jack's hands between his own, squeezing it tight. Jack's little jump at the touch didn't go unnoticed, but he squeezed back, an awkward smile on his face.
Sandy drew up a few grains of dreamsand, shaping them into an honest admission. Coarse, and not of any traditional form of dream-speech given Jack's difficulties reading it, but honest. "I", a heart, and Kozmotis' outline, wearing a little halo to make the distinction from Pitch clear.
Jack laughed. "Okay, you win. Wish we had some beer to drown our sorrows in."
Sandy reshaped the sands into one of North's goblets, and Jack laughed harder.
"Yeah, that'd be good too."
Jack disappeared after watching the sunrise, seeking cooler climes than those of Sandy's island, and Sandy closed up the windows and doors of his room until the dark inside could pass for night. The moon could watch over the children of Earth while he slept; he'd earned a little rest.
.
Sandy couldn't claim to be surprised when he woke to find Kozmotis had left. It was a disappointment he'd prepared for early on, knowing that Kozmotis would want to seek out his daughter as soon as he was ready.
He hadn't expected Kozmotis would be ready quite so soon, but it seemed one of the traits Kozmotis shared with Pitch was efficiency.