Darian
I woke up to my alarm, which was the first weird thing I noticed, considering that I was usually up and dressed by the time it went off due to my habit of not sleeping. The second weird thing that I noticed was that I was really, really cold. Freezing, even! My face felt numb, and I started shivering almost immediately. Then, I felt something shift beneath my head, and my eyes snapped open at the realization of what must have happened.
I immediately sat up and came face to face with Jack, and I scrambled backwards with a squeak of shock and embarrassment, only to end up falling off of my bed. My head struck the ground first, and never before had I been so glad that my floor was carpeted. I could only hope that the dull thud hadn't alerted my parents. "Are you okay?" Jack called, peering over the edge of the bed, but I could see that he was struggling to hold back a laugh.
"I'm fine!" I breathed quickly, stumbling to my feet and making a beeline for my closet. "I just need to get ready for school." I grabbed the first outfit within my reach and ran to the bathroom, feeling the need to get away from Jack as quickly as possible. As soon as I had shut the door behind me and locked it, I slumped against the sink and took deep breaths, trying to calm myself.
How embarrassing! After stressing the fact that I did not want him to hang around while I slept, I had fallen asleep on him! I chastised myself on letting that happen, then turned my anger on Jack, silently asking why he didn't just leave. Of course, I knew why, but I almost would have preferred him to wake me up than to subject me to this kind of embarrassment. Almost. I'd gotten most of a good night's sleep, which really felt good. I wondered if I was cursed to always go to such extreme lengths for just one night of peace.
No, he would be gone soon, and Pitch would be satisfied, though I could only imagine how angry he was that it was taking me so long to get rid of Jack and the Nightmares that awaited me in revenge. The more I thought about it, the less I wanted Jack to leave. If he stayed, if I told him, there might be some chance that he could fight off Pitch, but I also knew that Jack couldn't be with me forever, and certainly not every night. I had struggled with this all weekend and had come to the conclusion that it was Jack's decision when he should leave. That was our deal.
But then he had left that choice up to me in asking me if I wanted to kiss him! It seemed so cruel. In leaving it up to him, I had at least reassigned some of the blame in this mess, but in the end, it all fell back to me, and I just couldn't make up my mind.
I began pacing back and forth while rubbing some warmth back into my arms as I pondered my predicament. I did this as long as I possibly could before I stopped, sighed, and realized that this was something I needed to deal with later. Life and death could wait. I had to get ready for school.
I hastened through getting dressed and putting on my makeup, and when I fully composed myself, I was ready to face Jack again. I opened the door to find him waiting for me at the foot of my bed, clutching his staff nervously. He stood as I entered. "Hey, I'm real sorry about last night," he began.
I blushed and looked away. "No, I'm sorry. I put you in that position. You were just trying to help," I mumbled.
"So…are we cool?"
I gave a small laugh. "Yeah, we're cool."
"Great!" Jack exclaimed suddenly. "Now that that's out of the way, can I please come to school with you today?"
The question was so strange and so sudden that I stepped back in surprise and was struck speechless. When I recovered slightly, I stated, "No! Of course not!"
"Why?" he whined.
"Because you can be a real child sometimes, and I am not babysitting you today!" I insisted.
"I'll be good! I promise!"
"No."
"But I've never been!"
"Well, maybe you should have gone with Jamie," I said.
Jack looked away sheepishly. "Actually, I have," he admitted slowly. I groaned. "But that was middle school! I've never been to high school."
"It's worse," I tried to tell him.
"If I remember correctly, you once told Jamie the opposite," Jack pointed out.
He had me there. "My answer still stands."
"And I'll get to see Miranda again," he added. Another good point. Miranda would absolutely murder me if I denied her another chance to hang out with Jack.
I looked at Jack's earnest, pleading face, and despite every fiber of my being telling me that this was a terrible, horrible idea, I finally sighed, "Fine. You can tag along, but just for today."
Jack whooped and did a backflip right then and there, knocking one of my porcelain dolls off its shelf. Luckily, we were both fast enough to catch it between the two of us before it could hit the floor and break, and I gently set it back where it belonged. "No wonder you can't sleep with these things watching you. Don't you find them the least bit creepy?" Jack asked with a shudder. He pointedly turned the doll around so that it faced the wall.
Immediately, I set it right. "Let's just get going before we miss the bus." I slung my backpack over my shoulders and rushed down the stairs with Jack sliding down the banister beside me. Dad had already left for work, and Mom was working in the kitchen, finishing preparing my lunch.
"You're running late," my mom commented as I hastily grabbed a pack of toaster pastries and two water bottles from the pantry.
"I slept," I said with a shrug.
Mom smiled and handed me my lunchbox. "Remember, your father and I are meeting some people for dinner this afternoon, so Miranda needs to give you a ride home from rehearsal."
"Got it." I started for the door, but Mom pulled me back.
"Have a good day, Sweetie, and break a leg." With that, she kissed me on the forehead, and I blushed as Jack made a sweet face at the scene.
Jack and I waited on the porch for the bus to arrive, and as we sat on the front steps, I opened the pastries and handed one to him. While we ate, I also took out a pen and marked the caps of the water bottles with our initials so that we wouldn't get them mixed up. I handed Jack his, and he gave me a chocolatey smile before taking a drink.
The bus came to pick me up shortly after, with Jack choosing to fly alongside it instead of riding it with me. I took my usual seat, and while normally I would just stare out the window and zone out, Jack never allowed me the chance. He made such funny faces in the window throughout the whole ride that I had to clamp a hand over my mouth to keep from laughing out loud.
It was going to be a long day.
When we got to school, Jack immediately asked me if we could seek out Miranda in the hallway, but I informed him that since Miranda drove herself to school, she usually arrived later, so instead, I gave him a short tour of the school, so that if he should get bored during my classes – which he most likely would – and decided to wander off, he wouldn't get lost. I walked him through the hallways, showing him the classrooms he would find me in during the day – the chorus room, the theater, etc. – eventually ending up in my first period classroom, which was calculus.
I took my seat at the front of the classroom and began unpacking. "Huh," Jack said thoughtfully, floating into the desk beside me.
"What is it?" I wondered out loud. It was still early, and nobody else had wandered into the classroom yet, so it was safe for us to talk without me looking crazy.
"I would have thought you might sit closer to the back, since you're so shy and all," he remarked. "Aren't you more likely to be noticed up here?"
"Actually, most kids sit near the back to talk to each other where they think the teacher can't hear. If I sit up front, I'm usually left alone unless someone wants to discuss the homework," I explained.
"But what about the teacher? Doesn't he call on you more often?" he asked.
I shook my head. "Usually, teachers assume that the students up front are more willing to pay attention and don't ask us questions very often. They'll actually call on the kids in the back more often because they won't stop talking and bringing attention to themselves."
Jack nodded as he processed the complexities of seating arrangements and looked as if he wanted to ask another question, but before he could, another student joined us in the classroom and took the seat Jack was sitting in, and I heard his sharp intake of breath as the student phased through him as an unbeliever. I gave Jack a concerned look when he had wriggled his way out of the situation, but he waved his hand dismissively, assuring me that he was really fine. I knew that on some level, though, it still bothered him.
The school day passed by uneventfully, much to my surprise. As I expected, Jack found calculus to be exceedingly boring and disappeared during most of it, but he stuck it out through chemistry after hearing the teacher say that as a treat, she would make a gummy bear explode if we got all our work done that day. Jack and Miranda were reunited in chorus class and were inseparable throughout it, and unfortunately, they spent the period coming up with new ways to annoy me, including whispering my name every few seconds to catch my attention, only to smile and wave when I turned around, and Jack summoning a breeze to turn the pages of my sheet music and blow my hair into my face so that I couldn't read it. That was the worst of it, though, and it was certainly not as bad as I had been expecting.
In theatre, we mostly ran through the harmonies of chorus numbers in Seussical for the sake of the ensemble, but towards the end, we ran solos and duets with the leads, and Jack took a break from chatting with Miranda to sit on the piano and listen to me intently. I blushed, but I sang proudly with my fellow leads, happy that at least he would be able to hear the full harmonies in the songs instead of just my part, though I had a feeling that he didn't really care much for all that. Afterwards, I caught Miranda looking between the two of us and raising a suggestive eyebrow, and I childishly stuck my tongue out at her when I was sure that no one was watching.
After school, the three of us headed to the theater for Seussical practice. Since the entire cast was summoned for the afternoon, we spent rehearsal running and fine-tuning the choreography for the bigger numbers, "Biggest Blame Fool" being chief among them. While the vocals were clean after class that day, a few of the dancers still flailed around like awkward noodles on the stage, and I was slapped in the face the first time I came in to say my lines, causing the director to change my entrance so that I was up on a platform with the Cat in the Hat instead of downstage where all the action was. Concerned, Jack approached me backstage when I had a small moment, asking if I needed any ice, but I assured him that I was fine.
During the rehearsal, I was never so glad that my character had little to do in the way of dancing. The director worked the cast hard that day to make up for the lost time that the snow had caused. Miranda, being a Wickersham Brother and having to leap around the stage in every appearance, nearly collapsed towards the end of rehearsal, and even when the ensemble was dismissed, the leads were called back for a costume fitting.
Jared had gotten a lot of work done over the impromptu break and was halfway through with most of the costumes. I tried on the simple blue dress he had created for me, twirling around in the mirror so that I could catch a glimpse of the one-feather tail that was so important to my character. I glanced around and saw June admiring her vibrant red dress that was trimmed with multi-colored feathers and had a slit running up one side. Like me, all she was missing so far was her over-the-top tail.
After Jared finished taking notes on what was left to be done costume-wise, we were finally dismissed. Jack was waiting for me and Miranda by the door of the dressing room and didn't appear to have wandered despite how long we must have taken, and I gave a silent sigh of relief at that. I'd hardly had time before rehearsal to run through the dangers of fooling around backstage with Jack, knowing that the first thing he would want to do was explore. I could only imagine the chaos it would cause if he messed around in the tech booth or with the fly system. Thankfully, it seemed as though all my worries were for nothing, and we left the building for the parking lot, laughing and chatting the whole way there.
"So, Jack," Miranda began, pulling her coat tighter around herself as we travelled down the sidewalk, "if you're still here, how come it isn't snowing?"
"Darian had me promise to make it stop if I was going to stick around a while," he replied.
Miranda shot me a pointed glare. "You mean we could've had a longer break?"
"We have a show to rehearse," I reminded her.
She rolled her eyes and turned back to Jack, deciding it was best to change the subject. "How long are you plannin' to stay, anyway? Will you still be in town for the show?"
Jack glanced at me uncertainly before answering, "I guess that depends."
"Depends on what?"
There was an awkward pause as the both of us tried to figure out how to respond. Neither of us really wanted to explain our deal to her, and we were saved from doing so when a new voice entered into the conversation.
"Well, well, well. What do we have here?"
I froze, rooted to the spot as both Jack and Miranda whirled around to face the newcomer. I kept my back towards the all-too-familiar voice, unable to overcome the sudden, overwhelming wave of fear that swept through me.
Pitch.
"Darian," he called out to me, and unable to avoid it any longer, I slowly turned to look at him. I was shaking so bad that I could hardly stand. In fact, curling into a ball and crying seemed incredibly tempting, but to my own amazement, I managed to keep upright. Pitch was standing in the middle of a stretch of grass that ran between the sidewalk and a wooded area at the edge of the campus.
"It's been so long since we last talked. It seems I am never able to catch you alone," he taunted, giving a pointed glance at Jack. "No matter. This will have to do. Do you have anything to say for yourself?"
I remained silent and trembling. Miranda gently shook my shoulder, trying to snap me out of my paralyzed state. "Darian, who is that?" she asked, trying very hard not to show how frightened she really was. Even though she wasn't fully aware of the danger we were in, Pitch always managed to draw out a primal sense of fear in anyone in his presence.
Thankfully, Jack replied for me, since I still had not found my voice. "The bogeyman," he growled, standing protectively in front of the two of us, his staff held at the ready.
"Pitch Black, at your service," Pitch said with a mock smile and bow towards Miranda. Her grip tightened on my shoulder as she began to understand the situation. Still, she remained steady, and I admired her for that.
"Run," Jack ordered.
Miranda, still attempting to wrap her mind around what was going on, replied, "What?"
"Run!"
He didn't have to tell me twice. I tripped over myself in trying to get moving, and if it weren't for Miranda helping me along, I would have fallen flat on my face. We sprinted back towards the school, since we were much closer to it than to the student parking lot, where Miranda's car awaited us. We tugged on the doors, only to find that they were locked. We banged on the windows and shouted, hoping for at least a janitor to come along, but we were quite alone, the last people to leave the building.
"This can't be happening! This can't be happening!" I chanted, pacing frantically in a circle before my legs finally gave out from under me, and I sank to my knees on the pavement. "He's come for me."
"Why?" Miranda asked. I kept my eyes trained on the sidewalk and didn't answer. "Whatever!" she cried in a tone that informed me that this was not going to be the last time she asked me. "We need to try and make it to my car." Angrily, she hauled me to my feet, and we took off back down the sidewalk.
Jack
"That was hardly necessary," Pitch told me as I watched the girls run off before turning back to him. My staff glowed threateningly. "I'm not here to fight you. We both know that I'm not strong enough right now. I simply have some business to discuss with Darian." He stepped forward, as if to follow her down the sidewalk, but I intercepted him.
"What kind of business could she possibly have with you?" I spat.
Pitch raised an eyebrow, which was impressive, considering he didn't have any. "Oh? I would have thought that she must have told you, seeing as you're still here."
I gritted my teeth in annoyance at how he danced around the subject, taunting me. "Told me what?"
Pitch smiled and let out a malicious chuckle. "This is too good!"
"Pitch!" I growled, holding up my staff. "Get to the point!"
"Darian made a deal with me," he stated slowly.
Unable to believe such an accusation, I finally snapped and attacked him. "You're lying!" I shouted. "She would never!"
Pitch darted out of the way of my icy blasts, all while saying, "Oh, but she did! Several weeks ago, actually. I believe it was the night before she left Burgess."
"No!" I kept attacking him all while memories of Darian's strange behavior since that night came flooding back to me. I had suspected that she was hiding something, but not this. Never this!
Pitch aimed blasts of black sand my way, and one lucky shot grazed me and managed to knock me out of the sky. He continued to gloat. "In fact, the only reason I'm here right now is because she neglected to hold up her end of the bargain, and she must pay for it. Ah! Here she comes now."
I watched in horror as Darian and Miranda came running back this way, heading for a short set of concrete stairs that led down into the lower parking lot that was reserved for student use. Miranda, the more athletic of the two, was in the lead and was already at the bottom of the stairs by the time Darian even came near the top. Pitch drew back one arm as if pulling on the string of an invisible bow before releasing a deadly arrow of Nightmare sand aimed directly at her.
I flew after it, horrifying memories of Sandy being struck flashing back to me, but I was too late. The arrow hit her squarely in the back and dissolved into her just as she leapt off the top stair. She could only let out a short, strangled scream before collapsing. I managed to catch her before she fell to the concrete, and I laid her down on the pavement at the bottom of the stairs. "Darian!" Miranda called, as she ran back towards us, but I motioned for her to stay where she was. It was too dangerous.
I tried to hold Darian still as she writhed on the pavement, and I repeated her name over and over and over again, but she seemed unable to hear me. She only continued to flail and gasp for breath, all while her eyes remained wide, seeing only whatever Nightmares she was currently suffering through. I knew that she didn't have long. Pitch's arrow had only taken about a minute to temporarily kill the Sandman, an Immortal, and Darian was only human.
I looked up to see Pitch strutting confidently down the stairs towards us. "Please! Stop this!" I cried out. "I'll do anything."
Pitch grinned at this, reveling in how I was completely at his mercy. I was sure the Guardians would be angry with me if they saw how weak I was in this moment, but I couldn't help it. I would do anything for Darian. "That's a tempting offer, Jack, but I've already accomplished what I came here to do. There's nothing I could really need as of right now, unless…"
"Unless what?" I asked hastily. Darian's struggles were continuously growing weaker, and I knew Pitch was going to draw this out as long as possible to make me desperate.
"Unless I had a guarantee that I wouldn't be pursued by you after I saved her. Like I said, I'm not strong enough to really defeat you yet, so if you would be so kind as to hand over your staff for a moment, I'd be happy to help," Pitch explained.
There was no time to debate it. Without hesitation, I handed it over, but not without saying, "You know that I won't be powerless for very long."
He snatched my staff from my hands with a triumphant grin. "No. Just long enough."
With a wave of his hand, the Nightmare sand flew from Darian's body and disappeared. Darian finally lay still, and her eyes drifted shut. She would have appeared dead if it wasn't for the frantic rise and fall of her chest.
I didn't have long to rejoice in her safety, though. Almost as soon as the sand cleared, Pitch snapped my staff over his knee, and I was suddenly racked with excruciating pain, followed by an agonizing hollowness that came with the loss of my magic. I could not stifle a small cry as I doubled over. My staff and I had some sort of magical connection that even I didn't fully understand, and he couldn't hurt the staff without hurting me or depriving me of the full extent of my powers, as we had discovered nearly three years ago in a particularly lonely spot in Antarctica.
Pitch tossed the two halves of my staff to the bottom of the stairs, but I was in too much pain to retrieve them. "See you soon," Pitch said ominously. With that, he disappeared in a cloud of black sand.
The next thing I knew, Miranda was shaking me awake, crying, "Are you alright?"
I sat up, doing my best to ignore the dull ache that ran through my entire body. "Yeah," I groaned. "I just blacked out a little there." I had done the same thing the first time this had happened, and I had hoped to not repeat the experience.
"What about Darian? Is she - ?"
"She's alive," I assured her. We both crouched over Darian then to check over her. She was still passed out on the pavement, which was reasonable. A near-death experience was sure to be exhausting. All things considered, she appeared to be okay, but it didn't seem like she was resting easily. Her face seemed troubled still, and I could only assume that it was because of a few lingering Nightmares.
"Could you hand me my staff?" I requested, and for once, Miranda silently complied; however, I could see the questions in her eyes, but she knew better than to ask them at a time like this.
I held the two halves of my staff together until the crack between them began to glow and mend itself, and before too long, I felt energy surge through me until I felt as good as knew. The torture I had endured became only a memory. After making sure that I could both walk and fly with ease, I lifted Darian very carefully and carried her to Miranda's car, making sure that I didn't jostle her too much. I climbed into the backseat with her and held her while Miranda drove us the short distance to Darian's house.
When we arrived, Miranda found the hidden key to the front door and held it open for me as I flew in with Darian. I laid her on the couch and both Miranda and I collapsed into chairs from exhaustion. We were silent for several minutes until Miranda broke it by saying, "I have so many questions that I don't know where to start."
I shrugged tiredly. "I can try to answer some, but honestly, I'm not really sure what just happened."
Seeing that I was almost as confused as she was, Miranda shot me a brief pitying look. "I guess first I should ask if you're really okay. What happened with you back there?" She nodded towards my staff to make it clear what she was referring to.
I gave her my best attempt at a smile. "Yes. I'm fine. It's just something that happens to me if my staff is broken. My magic is connected to it, and it's really painful whenever that connection is ripped away. At least, that's the only explanation the Guardians and I can figure out."
Miranda nodded, appearing satisfied with that answer, and she let her worry for me melt again into anxiety at the whole situation we had found ourselves in. "So that was Pitch?" she asked. I nodded, and her expression changed into something like anger as she glanced over at her unconscious friend. "I mean, you told me how bad he was, and Darian even told me about what happened, but I never could have imagined…I guess it's one of those things you don't really know until you've seen it. He's horrible!" Miranda then swore loudly, something which I guessed Darian wouldn't have allowed if she were awake.
When she had calmed down slightly, Miranda said, "Darian said that he came for her. Do you know what she meant by that?"
My mind flashed back to what Pitch had claimed - that Darian had made a deal with him and hadn't kept up her end – and after what Miranda had just said, I wondered if there was more truth in it than I had originally believed. My hope that it was all just a lie to get under my skin fell even farther when I remembered that Pitch very rarely outright lied, though he would state whatever parts of the truth were most likely to hurt people.
After thinking all this through, I hesitantly replied, "I don't know." I wasn't much better than Darian at hiding things, though, and Miranda raised an eyebrow skeptically. "I think there are some things about what just happened that only Darian can explain," I added.
We turned to watch her a while, perhaps both of us wishing that she would wake up right then and answer all of our questions, but she stayed just as still as before, and after a few minutes of silence, we sighed in unison and Miranda stood to leave.
"You don't have to go," I told her, grabbing her hand as she walked by. "I'm sure she wouldn't mind seeing her friend when she wakes up." Miranda gave me a hard look, letting me know that she understood my meaning and wasn't pleased by it. Truth be told, I was somewhat afraid of confronting her by myself and had hoped that Miranda might stay to act as a sort of buffer if need be. I was scared of what Darian might tell me because surely, it would be impossible to continue hiding after all that had just happened.
"No," she said firmly. "I should get home before my mom starts to worry about me, and besides, it looks like you two have a lot to discuss, and I would hate to be a burden. Darian can explain everything to me later. I don't need to get in the middle of something that I clearly don't understand or have any business gettin' involved in." I let go of her hand and looked away in shame, understanding her meaning completely. She headed for the door, calling, "I hope to see you soon, Jack."
I heard the door slam shut, and I was left to wait.
Darian
I opened my eyes for only a brief moment before a sharp pain in my head made me close them again. I groaned and pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes. It had been brief, but I had seen enough to know that it was already dark when I woke up.
Gradually, I relaxed and rubbed my forehead to try and lessen my headache. It didn't do much good, but I eventually felt well enough to open my eyes again and glance around the room. My gaze finally came to rest on Jack, who was sitting in a chair across from where I laid on the couch. "You're awake," he remarked with both surprise and relief.
I wasn't sure if there was any way to respond to that, so I kept silent and attempted to push myself up into a sitting position. My arms trembled and made the movement very difficult, and with how attentive he usually was, I half-expected Jack to fly over and assist me. He remained where he was, however, and after much struggling, I managed to sit up, though I was left exhausted by the effort, and my headache returned with such a force that I bent over with my head in my hands until the worst of it passed.
"What happened?" I asked after a while. I could remember panicking at Pitch's appearance. I remembered running to Miranda's car and someone shouting as I approached the stairs, but nothing after that.
"Pitch attacked. He hit you with a lot of Nightmare sand. Darian, you almost died…" At this, Jack choked up and was unable to speak for several minutes. I let this new information sink in, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't feel any relief at the fact that I lived, only troubled at the fact that I had come so close to death. I chose to put off sorting through my own feelings and turned my thoughts to Jack's, pitying him for what he must have felt. He had told me the particulars of the Sandman's death and resurrection, and I couldn't imagine what he must have gone through after nearly reliving the experience. But I couldn't help but wonder: how had I survived?
Before I could ask, Jack finally composed himself and said, "I was hoping that you could explain the rest."
"I'm not sure I understand what you mean," I told him, but despite my confusion, I could feel my anxiety rising.
"Do you know why he came in the first place? Why he tried to kill you?" he asked. As his voice rose in apparent frustration, the temperature in the room dropped.
I shivered and looked away. "Maybe he was trying to get to you through me," I lied. "He knows we care for each other, and it's not like he hasn't done it befo-"
"Pitch told me something," Jack interrupted, having no patience to sit through my obvious lies. "He said that you made a deal with him."
My face must have gone entirely white, and my eyes widened in fear. As my heart hammered against my ribs, I worried that I might pass out again from the extreme emotion I was filled with. He knew.
Jack studied my expression and took my silence as an answer, and for a moment, I thought I could hear both our hearts breaking. Everything I had done to protect him – or rather, to protect myself, for my actions had been, in part, motivated by a selfish desire to preserve his good opinion of me – was slipping rapidly through my fingers, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was helpless. How could I have done this?
Jack stood from his chair and began angrily pacing about the room, leaving a trail of frost in his wake. "I'm such an idiot. What was this deal?" he asked, gritting his teeth. When I hesitated to answer, he repeated the question again, only much louder, and I cowered on the couch. We had fought plenty of times before this, but I wasn't sure that I had seen him truly angry until that moment, and to have all of that rage directed at only me was utterly terrifying.
Nice, Darian, I mentally scolded myself. You managed to tick off a force of nature.
"Pitch said," I began slowly and on the verge of tears, "that if I promised to stay away from you, he wouldn't give me as many Nightmares, but if I refused to comply, it would only get worse for me. He knew that we were close and thought it would be a sort of revenge if he got me to break your heart."
"If we were so close," he spat, "how could you have agreed to something like that?"
"I was scared!" I protested. Jack wasn't satisfied with this answer, and I couldn't bear the disdainful way he looked at me. "Jack, please!" I begged, searching for some kind of sympathy in him, but there was nothing there but hurt and anger. "I know it was selfish, sparing myself pain at your expense, but what was I supposed to do?"
"You should have told me!" he shouted, and the outburst must have drained him of what was left of his energy after the events of that day because in the next moment, he felt the need to lean heavily on the mantle. "I could have protected you."
"No, you couldn't," I said with a certainty that surprised both of us. "Jack, you are a Guardian of Childhood, not just of me. You are responsible for the happiness of millions of children all over the world, and you can't care for them while watching over me every second of every day to make sure that I'm safe from Pitch. And even if you tried, can you imagine how guilty I would feel if someone else got hurt just because you were with me? I'm not going to pretend that what I did wasn't bad, but I'm not supposed to be the hero. You are."
If my reasoning got through to him, he refused to show it. He stood completely still where he was, watching me with a continuous wounded frown, and if my heart hadn't already broken earlier, I was sure that his expression in that moment would have broken it then. As it was, I continued, though in a quieter voice, "Not to mention the fact that even if I wasn't in any danger, it wouldn't matter. I've told you before why we can't be together. You're immortal. I'm not. It would have to end eventually. I thought that it might save us both a lot of pain if I just ended it now."
After hearing this again but seeing it in a new light with what he now knew about my situation, Jack angrily pushed off from the mantle and started for the back porch, scaring off the cat as he did. "Obviously, you were wrong," he grumbled as he took up his staff.
"Jack, wait!" I called. Hastily, I stumbled to my feet and chased after him, catching up just as he leapt onto the railing to take off. The exertion left me out of breath, and I had to brace myself on my knees for several moments before I could speak again. Jack glared at me impatiently. "Where are you going?"
"Away," he answered simply, but with all of the contempt in the world. "Isn't that what you always wanted?"
"No! I mean, yes, but not like this! I'm sorry, Jack. I really am. I never wanted to hurt you," I insisted.
"You know, that's pretty hard to believe right now," he said, shaking his head. "I should never have come here."
Angry at his refusal to listen to my apologies, I huffed, "Well, at least we agree on one thing." Jack turned to leave again, and despite how hopeless our situation was, despite how angry I still felt, I couldn't bear to watch him go, not like this, and I searched for anything I could say to get him to stay, or at least, delay his departure. "Aren't you forgetting something?"
"What?" he hissed through his teeth, barely holding himself together.
"Our deal," I reminded him, though I instantly saw that it was the wrong thing to say. It took him a moment to realize what I was implying, and when he did, I saw his anger rise again, accompanied by a thick layer of ice spreading along the railing.
He fixed a cold glare on me, and though he trembled with rage, he managed to keep his voice eerily calm. "Do you really think, after what you've done, that I would want to kiss you now?" He shook his head again, and without saying another word, he launched into the air and flew off as fast as he could, disappearing into the night.
I watched him go, and when it was all over, I let my gaze travel to the moon, and if it were possible, it almost seemed to be disappointed in me, at what I had done. As if it couldn't bear to look at me any longer, it quickly hid behind a cloud, and I found myself mad at the moon, of all things! If he was so ashamed of me, why hadn't the Man in the Moon told me what to do earlier? I huffed and stormed inside, slamming the door behind me before stomping up the stairs to my bedroom, where I promptly collapsed on my bed and cried myself to sleep.
(Whoops! I disappeared again. It's been a little crazy around here, but rest assured, I have been working on chapters since I've been gone. How do monthly updates sound? I think I might be able to handle that. Anywho, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, where Darian's mistakes catch up to her and Jack finally learns the truth in the worst possible way. Be sure to favorite, follow, and review, and keep a lookout for the next chapter, in which much angst ensues.)
