Thirty Years Previous,
January
In the end, it was Phil who found Jack's body. He came in early that next morning with three bottles of warm formula and tried to rouse the new parent to give the babies their first meal. Moments later he burst into the workshop carrying the limp form, and all hell broke loose.
Bunnymund returned to the Pole to find the workshop in an uproar. He tried to flag down a yeti, but no one would stop, and he didn't speak Abominable well enough to interpret a dozen shouts echoing through the cavernous factory at once. His heart racing, he made a bee-line for the infirmary, where all the chaos seemed to be centered, only to be cut off by several yetis waving their arms and shooing him away.
"All right, all right," he sighed as his way was barred down the third corridor in a row. "I can take a hint, sheesh."
He retreated to the lower levels, grinding his teeth. The wrongness was palpable, he could practically scent it in the air. Being unable to attach it to a cause wrought havoc on his nerves.
Maybe it really was nothing. Maybe the leftover eggnog had gone off and food-poisoned half the crew. Maybe North added a little too much kick to his fruitcake recipe and was off on one of his sugar-induced flashbacks to his glory days. Maybe there were problems with the reindeer.
All the 'maybes' evaporated when he returned to the guest bedroom that had been set aside as a recovery room and found it devoid of Jack. Bunny's heart sank. Another complication, then. Strewth. It'd already been such a rough pregnancy. Hadn't Jack had enough already?
In their cradle, the babies began to move, making some of their first sounds: squeaks and whines that didn't quite turn into cries just yet. They were all too brand-new to understand that the discomfort in their little stomachs was a call for food. Aster let his rising parental instincts drown out the worries for his mate, gathered the infants from the bassinet and carried them to the bed, fetching the bottles a moment later.
He made a nest from the bed sheets, lined the three bottles side-by-side, and nudged a kit towards each rubber nipple. The white buck found his firstand clamped his teeth down on the nub with such determination that it brought a grin to Aster's face. "Thatta boy, Kaffie. Show 'em how it's done."
Jasmine followed suit a moment later, as though insisting that Kaffir would never beat her at anything, not even pigging out. But Coralberry – that tiny, trembling lump of gray fur – refused to take the bottle even when it was set right against her nose.
Aster scooped the run of the litter into his arms human-style and cradled her close to his chest. He rubbed soothing circles into her neck and set the bottle right between her lips, echoing her sibling's soft chitters with his teeth. "C'mon, Coral girl, have a bit. Get a little in yeh now, just a tick."
It never boded well for a kit to refuse food, especially not an undersized runt. Her refusal only added to Bunnymund's nerves. They were a small litter, by Pooka standards, but they'd be hassle enough sooner or later. Where was Jack? Maybe Coral took after him and wouldn't eat because it was too warm. Jack could fix that, he should be here, should be recovering, learning to be a dad. So what was going on…?
With a bit of a push, Aster managed to squeeze a few precious drops of formula down Coralberry's throat right before North stepped through the bedroom door. The toymaker's sleeves were rolled up and his belt was pulled tight; he'd been working. Normally, the old Cossack would come out of his craft rosy-cheeked, his eyes alight with the wonder of inspiration. Today, those eyes were dull. He looked very old.
Bunnymund's stomach clenched. North aged, but he did not get old.
"What happened?" he demanded, placing Coralberry in the bassinet with her bottle. "North, what the hell is going on? Where's Jack?"
North heaved a long sigh. There were wrinkles all around his eyes. Not smile-lines. He wrung his hands to steady their trembling before reaching for his friend's shoulders. "Bunny…"
"Spit it out, mate!"
North's grip on his shoulders held firm. "We…We did everything we could."
Bunny's ears fell back against his skull. His heart raced and his breath came so fat he could barely get out the words. "What…What's that supposed to mean?"
He already knew. He could see it in those old, tired eyes.
With a violent jerk, he broke from North's attempt at comfort and shot out into the hall, bounding straight over the banister, off the globe, and up two floors. His claws scraped and pounded on the hardwood floors, leaving long gashes and nicks, but he didn't care. This wasn't real, it wasn't happening, it was all some terrible joke and he was going to strangle Jack for it because this was not funny and –
No one stopped him from bursting into the infirmary. Not a single yeti dared linger between him and the impossibly still thing on the slab.
Aster stumbled into the room, clinging to hope, his center. But hope could not reset reality. New life could not restore the dead.
Bunny crouched over the still form of his lover. He stroked the pale and his paw came away wet.
He cried.
Toothiana arrived within the hour. North had only just managed to coax Bunny away from Jack's – from Jack – when she swooped in through the medical bay doors. For a split second after laying eyes on the body, her feet actually touched the ground. Then she launched herself at the lifeless form and clutched it, bawling.
Sandman came next. He could not mourn. He couldn't. If he allowed himself to give in to such devastating emotions, the dreams under his care would be irrevocably twisted for months to come. Instead, he threw himself into his task, crafting dreams of snow days and endless blizzards, of dancing with the wind and of drawings in frost that came to life.
North stayed close through it all, quietly working out the details of what had to come next. The silence did not suit him, nor did the age.
None of them had any answers.
Bunny hunched in a window bench, exposed to the bitter cold he normal abhorred, and reminded himself every five minutes to breathe. Breathe. Keep breathing.
Nothing about this felt real. It felt like a nightmare, the ones that had chased him to this planet eons before carrying the news of his peoples' demise. After all this time, so much peace and happiness, how could this have happened again? How could he have allowed it to happen again?
Lost in his spiraling thoughts, Aster didn't know how much time had passed before the Lunar Lama appeared. He was the only singular example of the old order that the Guardians had ever met. He was escorted up to their meeting room by a yeti guard, dressed not in the usual silver silks of those who studied the Moon, but in black drapes of mourning.
He said not a word, but went straight to North and bowed low, presenting an envelope of thick parchment written in silvery ink. The message, dictated to the Lamadary over many nights and thousands of moonbeams, told them the whole story, from the limitation of MiM's magic to Jack's decision and his forbiddance that Manny tell the others before it was too late.
North read it once to himself, then out-loud to his fellow Guardians. With every slow word Bunny felt his broken heart grow smaller and smaller. Finally, the message was set aside, and the Easter Bunny hunched over on the floor, curling his paws around his ears.
"My fault," he whispered. "This is all my fault."
"Vhat? No!"
"Aster, don't be ridiculous."
Sandy waved his arms and shook his head wildly.
But Bunny couldn't hear them over the truth. Jack had not been created to support new life, because that never should have been an issue – he was male. It was only because of him, his powers, his own inability to control himself, that it happened at all. And once the seed had been planted, of course Jack would make that choice, and damn the consequences. If he'd chosen any other way, he wouldn't have been Jack.
The blame was on his shoulders. He'd killed him. He'd murdered his own mate.
Hyperventilating on his own guilt, Aster pounded the floor with his foot. A tunnel opened through six stories and the entire mountain straight into the Warren's heart. Before anyone could stop him, he leapt in and vanished, leaving behind only a tiny flower that poked up through the floorboards. Within minutes, it wilted, hanging its head.
A single infant cry echoed through the tunnels in Bunny's wake, only to be drowned by his own pounding feet and heart. After that, there was only silence.
