Pitch leans the staff casually against his shoulder, wrist resting over top of it loosely. Even though he's not holding it properly, black dream sand has still coiled around it. His expression is casual yet toying; curious yet bored. He's waiting for a reaction, I can tell. Waiting for one that doesn't disappoint him.

"Why do you have my staff?"

It wasn't the answer he was looking for. He takes hold of the staff and lowers it from his shoulder with a silent sigh. "I thought you were smarter than this, Jack."

"Just give me a straight answer. I'm sick of your stupid games."

"You need to be able to figure things out on your own, you know. You don't have the Guardians to depend on anymore and I'm not going to spoon feed you answers."

I glare at him. "Why the hell not? Why do you have to be so abstract?"

He laughs once, a short, disbelieving 'ha!'. "Everyone's abstract, Jack. Even you."

"I am not."

"Of course you are. Who you are at face value and who you are inside are nearly two different people. You promised the Guardians you would work with them and then you went off and tried to solve everything on your own. It may make sense to you, but what did they think about it? They were insulted, weren't they?"

You were with Pitch?! – No! Listen, listen—I'm sorry! I didn't mean for this to happen!

I look away. He's always been about the sick mind games. Why did I ever think going to him was a good idea? Instead of giving me answers, he's giving me more questions. "You don't know me, Pitch. You didn't then and you don't now."

He chuckles, slowly spinning my staff in a circle. "On the contrary, Jack, I know you very well. When you know someone's fears, you know who they really are. And I find myself saying what I said to you the first time: you're Jack Frost; you make a mess wherever you go. Why, you're doing it right now."

I raise my head and look back at him as he makes his way over to me. That conversation was one I would never forget. "What did you do?"

He holds my staff out to me with a sick grin. "More to the point Jack, what did you do?"

I slowly take hold of the staff. For a moment his dream sand and my frost meet in the middle; intertwine with each other. He slowly lifts his hand off and the dream sand fades. What did he mean, what did I do? I didn't fuck up Easter this time. So the only thing he could possibly be referring to is—

"Jamie!" I take off almost before I finish the thought. I'm more than relieved that I actually can now; that I'll be in Burgess in a matter of seconds. But I can hear Pitch chuckling down on the water and that relief quickly turns to dread. What has he done with Jamie?


I go straight to Jamie's house and land on the roof. Jamie and his friends are sitting around in his backyard looking unusually glum. I want to go down there and ask what happened but something tells me to wait.

"Do you think he's okay?" Pippa asks, shifting her boots in the snow.

Jamie shrugs. "You heard him, he said he was fine."

"Jamie, come on." Claude looks around at the rest of them. My head tilts. Who are they talking about? "He doesn't even want to hang out anymore, he's never around. Face it, he's blowing us off. Probably bored out of his mind with a bunch of kids."

"He is not!" Jamie stands, hands fisted at his sides. "His whole purpose is so we can have something to believe in! I'm sure he's fine."

I look between them all with open mouthed surprise. They're talking about me. I start to get up with the intentions of setting things straight with them but a firm hand on my shoulder keeps me down. "Ah-ah." I manage not to cry out this time but I know Pitch felt me flinch; he laughs quietly.

"What do you want, Pitch?"

"Think about this, Jack."

"Think about what?"

"You said yourself that Guardians and children aren't what's missing in your life."

"That doesn't mean I'm going to just leave them behind."

"You wouldn't be leaving them behind. You'd be outgrowing them."

I scoff. "I can't outgrow kids. I'm here for kids."

"You were."

I turn my head to look at him, leaning back when I see how close his face is to mine. Our noses had almost touched. "What are you talking about?"

"Manny made you into a Guardian because he knew the others would need extra help dealing with me. If I had never bothered with them, you never would have become a Guardian. They'd been doing just fine without you, Jack. And you'll notice they're doing fine without you now."

I look back down at the kids and their despondent faces.

"Really, it's Sandman whose keeping you all believed in." He continues. "With good dreams come all the things the Guardians protect. But children don't need you to have fun, Jack. If that were true, you would have invented fun."

"I kept Jamie believing. Which I wouldn't have needed to do if it weren't for you." I glare at him briefly. "In case you forgot, we need kids to believe in us in order to exist."

"That rule applies to me, too, Jack."

"So then why do you insist I just walk away?"

"Because they won't stop believing. Especially not Jamie. And they'll still have Christmas, still have Easter. Still have the Tooth Fairy until they run out of baby teeth. And they'll always have good dreams. But by clinging to their side so desperately, you're denying yourself what you want the most."

I look at him again, but instead of at me he's looking down at the children now. I've seen him confident and I've seen him mad. I've seen him surprised and even scared. But never sad. Right now, he bears a look that hints at tears. I don't know what to say. This is so uncharacteristic of him I can't even be sure he's faking it. This emotion shouldn't exist inside of Pitch Black.

The irritation I initially felt when he told me I was denying what I want the most—like he would know that—fades as I begin to wonder if he's actually talking about me anymore. Maybe he's talking about himself. I look away and then back again. "And what would that be?"

"More than one purpose."

My eyes narrow. What does that mean?

He glances at me when I don't answer and I turn away sheepishly. I don't think I've ever had eyes on him for that long before. He scoffs and looks away. "You don't get it, do you?"

"No. Sorry."

He sighs and moves from his crouch to sit down properly, raising his knees and resting his elbows on top of them. "As a Guardian, you have a center. What you protect in children is your purpose."

"Right."

"But you're insanely bored. Don't you think if you had more than one purpose, more than one thing to do, you wouldn't be bored?"

"Maybe." I don't know how many times he has guided the conversation to the destination he wanted it to reach, but this is the first time that not knowing the destination myself doesn't bother me.

"Limited to Guardian status yourself, you don't have many options. You have other Guardians, busy with their own purpose and hardly as emotionally troubled as yourself, and you have children, with whom you can't talk to about serious things. Adults would be perfect, except that—oh that's right—they can't see or hear you. What does that leave you with?"

I'm quiet for a moment. "I want to say no one but I'm guessing the right answer is you."

He smiles briefly. "I'm not actually evil, Jack."

"Could have fooled me."

He sighs. "I just wanted what you wanted, Jack. To be believed in. That's all fine and dandy if you have good things to protect. But when you have to use fear to be seen…"

"Then don't."

He gives a short laugh. "You act as if it's a choice! If I don't scare children, I become non-existent. I have no other options. I have to use what I have to work with. But I never said I wanted to do any of that."

"How could you become the Boogeyman without being evil? Why would Manny do that to someone?"

"This happened long before Manny was in the moon, Jack."

"What?"

"I was human like you were. I had a family; a daughter. I helped protect good dreams and the joys of children and adults around the galaxy."

I stare in disbelief. He has to be lying. The whole galaxy? Pitch Black defending it?

"I led armies and trapped thousands of Fearlings and guarded the planet we trapped them on. But it's a solitary job, doing what's right. I missed my daughter so much that the Fearlings hypnotized me into thinking she was trapped inside with them. I opened the gates to save her and was overtaken by the Fearlings. I became Pitch Black out of simple human weakness."

I watch him silently. My mouth is so dry I couldn't speak even if I knew what to say. I never would have pictured Pitch fighting off Fearlings, much less having a daughter. It seems impossible, and yet it explains absolutely everything. The other Guardians came to terms with their situation, managed to find something that let them enjoy their purpose. But Pitch… me… we don't have holidays. We don't give gifts. We're just… there. Trying to find a way to exist in the eyes of someone who understands. And the only people who understand are, well… us.

"Do you understand now, Jack?"

I can't bring myself to say anything. My throat has closed and I almost want to cry for him. I do, I do understand. Before I know what I'm doing I lean over to him and put my arms around him tightly.

He gasps, gives a noise of displeasure and tries to get out of it. But after a minute he gives up. He doesn't really accept it so much as sit there, but he doesn't leave even though we both know he could.

After a minute I sit back. We look at each other for a long moment; I can't tell if Pitch is honestly unimpressed or just trying to hide what he's really feeling. I'd like to think the latter, but that takes things into complicated grounds and things with Pitch are already so confusing.

"So?" He nods his head in the direction of the children sitting aimlessly in the snow. "What are you going to do, Jack?"

I look down at them, at how sullen they've become without me. It hurts to see them like this. So I can't have complicated relationships with them. But I can't just disappear without at least telling them it's not their fault. "I… I can't just leave them, Pitch. I can't."

He rolls his eyes like he knew I'd say this. He gets up to leave and I get a pang of something awful. "Pitch—" He looks down. "I'm sorry. For what happened to you. It's awful."

He smiles flatly, hands going behind his back. "I may need a lot of things, Jack Frost, but pity is not one of them." And with that he leaves, not even leaving a shadow behind.