Author's Note:

Conclusion of "Fish Hooks and Scars."

Wanna point something out: in the last chapter I said "hoodie" instead of the off-white shirt he was wearing when he was resurrected (I think it's just a regular shirt or a hunting shirt. I don't really know). My bad.

Putting a trigger warning just because this shot contains talk on self-harm.

Pre-movie.

Jack Frost was running. He didn't know for how long or how many miles he had run thus far, but he wasn't going to stop. Not anytime soon.

He could feel his pulse in his wrist. The pain had gone from incredibly intense to a dull throbbing sensation. He had to get these gashes covered, and soon. The amount of blood he was loosing wasn't as much as he thought it would have been, but it was still quite a bit. It made his heart beat faster, made his adrenaline skyrocket. He couldn't go to the village for help, nobody could see him. He didn't want to just take their medical supplies, either, even if he was injured. It just felt wrong to him.

His vision blurred. He wasn't sure if it was because of tears forming in his eyes or loosing too much blood or what, but it frightened him more than it should have.

Jack's sprint slowed to a jog. He finally stopped running and fell to his knees again. He felt sick to his stomach. He was scared to remove his hand from his wrist, but it was better to assess the damage now as opposed to later. After taking a deep breath and attempting to prepare himself, he very cautiously removed his right hand from his left wrist. He should have been curious and shocked, probably abashed, but he was more in awe than anything else.

The small gashes were gone. Not completely, but enough. The blood that had seeped from the wounds when they were opened was still stuck to his cold skin, frozen there, but the slits themselves were just... gone. The only things that remained were two thin, pink scars.

Jack stood and smiled. This was great news. He was healing, and rapidly. That meant that not only was he alive, but he must have some kind of supernatural powers that made him heal faster than your average spirit (he came to the conclusion that he was a spirit. It made sense to him).

Jack tried to stifle a laugh that was bubbling inside him, but it was too much. He let it out, and it wasn't any regular laugh. It was a laugh of relief and happiness.

He looked up at the bright sun that was beaming down on him. It warmed his face and made him feel even more at peace. After he finished his giggle fit, it was decided that his arm should be cleaned. The sight of frozen blood on his arm was beginning to make him sick again.

He picked up a handful of snow and rubbed it up and down his arm to remove the frozen red liquid that was the effect of an irrational decision (regardless of how rational it seemed at the time). Because it was frozen, it took quite a while for the snow to get the blood off his arm. However, he was able to, and then his arm looked good as new... minus the scars, of course.

If it had taken an hour for the wounds to close and scar over, it shouldn't take more than a couple more hours for the scars to completely disappear, right? Jack hoped so. Every time he looked at his wrist, he felt that pang of guilt return.

Jack was perched in a tree beside the lake again, aimlessly tracing his fingers over the scars on his wrist. He had to restrain himself from scratching them, though. They itched like crazy. But focusing on not scratching his wounds was a lot better than focusing on the trio that had returned to the lakeside. They had come back to retrieve their fishing gear, only to run away again when the youngest noticed there was a blood-stained fish hook lying in the frozen dirt. Seeing that scene unfold before him was more than enough to convince Jack that he needed to leave.

With help from the wind, he was gently deposited to the ground. He snatched his staff and called for the wind to carry him away. It obliged and lifted Jack slowly into the air, trying to balance the helpless seventeen-year-old. Then it swept him away from the lake. He watched as adults began to surround the lake, the three boys returning yet again. The adults were comforting them and asking questions.

Jack just allowed the wind to carry him to wherever it wanted. He still couldn't fly very well, but he didn't care. He just needed to go elsewhere for a while. A moderate snowfall followed closely behind him as he was whisped from city to city by the wind.

Years had passed since that fateful day at the lake. Years filled with happiness, fun times, and great adventures. Years filled with scary fights, sleepless nights, and watching the world around him change. Years filled with a little pinch of fear that one day he would relapse... that if he did relapse, the cuts would be deeper, there would be more of them.

But Jack remained steadfast. Granted, the urge came back once or twice when he was overstressed and hurt, but never again did he pick up any sharp object with the intention of harming himself.

The scars did not heal one hundred percent, either. They were very faint - you had to strain to see them, but that did not mean that they weren't there. They served as a reminder. A reminder of the person he used to be, how far he had come, how much he had grown.

And Jack was okay with that.

A/N:

Honestly, I struggled writing this. It just seems... meh. Sorry if it dissapoints.

Reply to Guest review: I chose "tossed and turned" because it sounded better than "she rolled around on her bed" - because Sophie moves in her sleep, as we have seen in the movie. Also, "tossed and turned" doesn't always have to have a negative connotation to it. Thanks for reviewing! Made my day :)