Jack sprinted down the tunnels, heading for the one that led to North America. Everywhere he looked, shards of colorful eggs littered the flora as far as the eye could see. Where his mind was a mess of half-formed panic and frozen, repressed emotion, his body responded instinctively to the adrenaline coursing through his veins. Eggs were crushed further under his feet, their sharp, stabbing pains the only reason why he didn't lift into the air.

They were the only things keeping him sane.

Inside the large passageway, more branched off, divided by country, by state. He hesitated long enough to register where he was going before continuing forward. The ground sloped steeply as he neared his destination, and he slid the rest of the way there. He emerged from the hole into a land of spring, so different from the darkness that he had just been trapped in. Sunlight filtered through the lush foliage of the oak trees, illuminating the disappointed faces of the children with their empty baskets, their sad words, their unwillingness to believe that Easter had failed to come this year. He came to a stop, gazing wildly around, and found Bunnymund hopeless, disconsolate. Bunnymund turned around to regard him with shocked eyes as another child simply passed through him with that familiar, transparent glow. He didn't say a word.

"Jack," North rasped from behind him. He turned around to face him, opening and closing his mouth at the same expression on his face. "Where were you? The nightmares attacked the tunnels. They... they smashed every egg, crushed every basket. Nothing made it to the surface."

"North, I—"

"Jack!" The flitting of wings interrupted him as Tooth came up next to North. She gasped, looking at the bruise forming on his face, the blood dripping from his hands and staining the grass under his feet. "What happened to you?" Her hands came to hide her mouth as she gasped again, looking at him with wide, fearful eyes. "Where did you get that?"

He followed her gaze to his left hand, where the golden case holding his memories treacherously announced its presence in his hand via the sparkles that shimmered off its metal form. He didn't even remember how it had got there, if he had picked it up or not. He dragged his gaze back up, meeting the assumptions, the accusations in their eyes.

"I... I was... It's..." If there was ever a moment he needed to clarify himself, it was now, with lives endangered and fingers pointed. And yet, the daze of the past few minutes, the unwillingness to accept petrifying his mind foiled his tongue. The sheer guilt their words brought prevented him from speaking.

"Where's Baby-tooth? And Sera?" she asked, backing away from him and half-hiding behind North. "What have you done, Jack?"

"That is why you weren't here? You were with Pitch?!" North almost shouted. So quick to believe the worst of him, quick to judge, to condemn Jack Frost. Pitch's words came back to him, finding it easy to curl their manipulating tendrils into the shell-shocked state of his mind. How eager they were to believe that he was a traitor. How eager to believe that the only reason he was there was for his teeth.

And what was his reason? To snatch Sera out of his clawing grip? How much of that was the selfish desire to find his teeth? He remembered the longing that had easily distracted him when he heard that voice calling his name. The case was silent, for now, but he could feel its temptation enticing him to pry it open, to find out who he had been. He shook his head briefly to clear his thoughts.

"No, listen, listen." Jack slid the case into his sweatshirt's pocket and extended a scraped hand in appeal. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen. But, look, I need you guys' help. They're—"

"He has to go." Bunnymund's voice was raw with barely suppressed pain, his eyes cold and unfeeling. He leaned over Jack, stabbing a finger at his chest.

"What—"

"We should never have trusted you." His paw bunched up into a fist. He could see the struggle behind his eyes as Jack backed away, desperate to hit him. And yet the blow never came as his chest heaved, his fist dropping to his side. Bunnymund turned his back to him the instant before his expression crumpled. "Easter is... new life," he said to him as he began to walk away. "Easter is about hope, and now it's gone." Bunnymund paused, looking at him over his shoulder with a heavy sigh, before further moving away. He felt the others begin to peel off as well, Tooth and North retreating with heavy hearts. There was no compassion, no understanding, no solace in their horrified gazes welling with tears, and Jack clenched his fists, desperately repressing the same sadness that came to his eyes.

He wanted nothing more than to shut the world out, to do whatever it took to end this tearing feeling that stabbed his chest, and so he accepted their retreat. He did more than accept. He reciprocated. The feeling of pain, of guilt, of shame and misery and hopelessness engulfed his entire body in its cold grip, and he felt brittle, glacial crystal wrap itself around him. His inclination to simply cease spawned a roping tide of energy that consumed his form in response to his anguish. Ice bit at his form, frigid enough to distract him. Opening his eyes, he saw a completely different world.

Arctic tundra and cold desert had replaced the spring flowers, the swaying branches and curling roots devoid of eggs. He squinted at what little sunlight managed to reflect brilliantly off of the sheets of ice, at the cutting wind with distant, unfocused eyes.

This power, this intuitive release of a large amount of energy every time he was overwhelmed with emotion. Why its connection to his instincts? Why, whenever he was consumed with rage or sorrow, did it only then express itself? Only his desires, not his consciousness, could control it, and it seemed as though it would be more hindrance then help if he didn't learn how to. He didn't have time for this, to wallow in his woes when Sera and Baby-tooth were still trapped in Pitch's lair, alone with him and the thousands of either dead or half dead fairies. To pop up in, what, Antarctica, much less wonder why he had suddenly teleported across the planet for the first time in three-hundred years.

And what had prompted this release? Why, now, after three-hundred years, was he only beginning to realize what he was capable of, both as a human being and as Jack Frost? Was it that he had learned to suppress his emotions in times of crisis? Gone into lock-down mode and continued almost a robot? Prevented his mind from sheer feeling? Was it that his sudden induction into the Guardians had unlocked some blocked off potential? That only now, after centuries of superficial times of nothing but fun and trivial amusements, he was beginning to feel pain and tenderness and what it meant to be human?

Or was it the sudden existence of belief he had never felt before giving him this before unknown strength? He had seen what belief—and the lack thereof—had done to Tooth. Her iridescence had darkened, her wings had slowed until they had started their nightly patrol for the collection of teeth. What would the loss of this year's Easter do to Bunnymund? Would he become weak, his bones old and brittle, with what little good-temper he showed further dissipating into tiredness and hopelessness? Jack had lived since his awakening without the attention, the faith that he craved, and consequently he was the hardiest of the Guardians when it came to surviving without the belief that sustained them. So was Sera responsible for this increase in potential? The fact that she was the only human on the planet who could see him? The fact that her snarky jokes, her very presence generally put him in a better mood?

Was she—and her belief in him—to blame?

It didn't matter, in the end. A radioactive spider could have bit him, and it still wouldn't matter. At that very moment, Pitch was out there, somewhere below the surface in that deep, dark, subterranean palace of his, possibly reducing her to that same smear of blood that he had to hundreds of the trapped fairies in his lair. He didn't think that Pitch would kill her outright, not without using her as leverage against the great Jack Frost, but there were things that were worse than death. It made his skin crawl to think about it.

He had wasted enough time already. So what if the Guardians had jumped to conclusions? So what if they thought he was a self-absorbed traitor? He was beginning to realize that maybe he was a bit more human than he had originally thought, with all their flaws, their mortalities, their hope and their persistence. To be human was to live, laugh, and love regardless of imperfections, things he might have once known before he had opened his eyes to the glacial waters of that lake from which he had emerged. Maybe he had made mistakes. Maybe he was too flippant for his own good. Maybe the loss of Easter had created a void in which the hopes of all the children of the world had been sucked into, but he still had his. Easily snuffed out at the careless breath of a sleeping girl, but still alive. It was fragile, a hairsbreadth from the edge of a cliff, a thread's burden over a bottomless abyss.

But it was still hope.

He gazed at the shadow of the moon, grasping his staff with a grip he had to force to relax. He tried to communicate with that part of himself that had that power, that potential, tried to summon it, to warp it to his will. He silently beseeched the Man in the Moon to grant him understanding and control over it. But the Man in the Moon had never spoke to him, never responded to his varying levels of pain and frustration, and he didn't really expect an answer this time.

He never had.

So be it. Not being able to slap Manny on the back and sneak in a wheedling ploy for assistance in being magically teleported to wherever the hell Pitch was certainly complicated things, but he didn't need him. Sooner or later, Pitch would come out of hiding with his next plot, and Jack would find him. He would seek the Guardians' help again, convince them that they were wrong about him. Fly around the globe, carve tunnels through every inch of the earth if he had to. For varying reasons, the current foremost of which was Sera's safety, he would do whatever it took to stop Pitch.

He just had one thing to do left.

His hand grasped the softly gleaming gold that cradled his teeth, withdrawing it from the pocket of his sweatshirt. His arm arched, ready to hurl it towards the horizon, and yet he hesitated to take that very last step in ridding himself of the case. How long he had yearned for these, yearned to know about the life he had before all of this. Was he a beggar, a commoner, a king? Did he have a mother, a father like everyone else did? Did he have friends? Siblings? Hobbies? Romantic pursuits? Was he a mischievous rake, an irrepressibly humorous flirt? A polite gentleman? Who had he been before he was Jack Frost? These questions had always lurked at the back of his mind ever since he had walked through that town and realized that no one could see, hear, or touch him. And now, he had that opportunity to find out.

Only now, he wasn't sure he wanted to.

Were the Guardians right when they believed that his desire for his memories was driving him to horrible lengths to obtain them? He remembered that voice, that fragment, that wisp, that strand of evanescent smoke calling out for his voice, looking, searching for him. If Sera hadn't been dragged into that damned pit, would he have still heard its siren call, still went down there in search of it? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe they were wrong. He closed his eyes, bringing his arm forward, and yet he found that it slowed at the zenith of its throw, that it wouldn't release the tube. He sighed, momentarily frowning, and he slowly looked down at the case in his hand with a pained look before sliding it into his pocket once more.

He may not have had time for this distraction, this indecision, but he couldn't do it.

A puff of black sand and a scream behind him caught his attention. His blood ran cold as he immediately turned around, holding his staff defensively and crouching slightly for easy maneuvering. His alarm largely seemed to be unneeded as he took in the sight before him with a confusion that prompted him to straighten and question his sanity.

Pitch face down in a scattering of black sand dotting the hardened ice was testament to Sera's flailing limbs and startled scream. He stared at them, alternating his dumbfounded gaze between Pitch's sprawled form and her spazzing out. Finally, he found words to express his incredulity.

"What the f—"

"Jacket," Sera shouted, throwing herself at him. "Off. Now." Before he could process what was happening, he found himself suddenly shirtless while she huddled inside his too-large sweatshirt. Baby-tooth fluttered weakly into the hood, disappearing somewhere to shiver inside its depths. Jack glanced at Pitch to see if he was as befuddled as he was.

"You fool—" Pitch's outraged insult was interrupted by Sera abruptly ripping the black robe from his body and wrapping it around her form convulsing in cold. Under it, he was au naturel, with his once again sprawled form granting him some degree of modesty.

"Huh," she noted through teeth chattering so hard he could barely make out what she was saying. "You make a better Taylor Lautner than he does. I'd take the pants too, but I know you don't wear boxers either."

"And how would you know that?" he finally managed, wondering in some nonplussed part of his mind if he succeeded in sounding like having himself suddenly divested of half of his clothing was completely normal.

"Remember when you got knocked out after, um... Sandy? Yeah," she chuckled slightly through clenched teeth. "North and Bunny thought it would be funny to leave Tooth, Baby-tooth, and me to take care of your wounds. Heh."

Pitch saved him from having to respond to that by lunging for Sera's throat with grasping hands and a furious roar. Sera let out a strangled scream and jumped behind Jack, reaching over his hand and tilting the staff towards Pitch. A spontaneous beam of snow smacked into him in a spot any male would sympathize with, and he blinked for a moment before falling to the ground in choked-off pain.

"At least the important bits are covered now," she remarked over his shoulder after watching Pitch writhe in agony against the ice for awhile.

"Please, please give him back his clothes." Jack pinched the bridge of his nose, wondering how he could have ever thought that Sera would need rescuing from the Boogeyman.

"But I'm cold," she complained. "It's not every day I get to frolic in subzero temperatures in jeans and and a shirt. Fine, fine, I'll give it back, but only because it smells like something curled up and died on it. Just know, if I turn into an ice cube a few seconds before I would have if I was wearing that dress of his, it's your fault. I suppose you want your sweatshirt back, too?" Jack looked over his shoulder, eyeing her out of his peripherals. He shook his head after a moment in wry amusement.

"Keep it, until we get you out of here at least. It looks good on you."

"Aww, you just like bragging about the fact that you can't, oh, I don't know, freeze to death. And being shirtless."

"You caught me," he said, his voice dryly sarcastic as he threw his hands up in surrender.

By this time, Pitch had recovered sufficiently enough to put his robe back on and stand with some measure of dignity. His eyes were slitted in loathing for the twat standing behind Jack, rage boiling the air around him. He opened his mouth to spew words of vehement hatred as he extended a hand towards them. Not waiting to see what he was going to do, Sera panicked and grabbed Jack's hand again, tilting his staff upwards. A snow-cone-looking shape appeared in Pitch's hand, at which the Boogeyman blinked at once more.

"There," Sera said. "Make sure you check for microphone feedback and clear out your throat before starting another dramatic speech again. If you need some water, I'm sure Jack could poof some more snow up for you." Pitch proceeded to make said dramatic speech, practically spitting at her.

"You stupid idiot! You annoying twit! You simpleton of a girl, you brainless piece of worthlessness! You are the most annoying and foolish person in your entire species!" Jack tensed as Pitch threw the snow cone on the ground while continuing to rant, continuously coming up with even more inventive insults as he progressed. Sera's hand on his forearm made him pause and glance at her as she held a finger to his lips.

"Let him have his moment," she whispered in his ear. "You know how he loves his dramatic speeches." He rolled his eyes while keeping a careful and somewhat bemused eye on Pitch. Finally wrapping up his performance with a few vows of eternal suffering and all that good stuff, Pitch lunged at Sera once more.

"Can I hit him now?" Jack asked of her while keeping himself in between them.

"Please do."

Jack swung at him with his staff baseball-style, hurling a jagged sweep of bladed ice that met only a small spray of sand as Pitch sidestepped to avoid it. He leapt overhead, sliding to a stop on bare feet and swinging the same shards of misty ice at him. Pitch swept his arm, consuming them in black smoke and hurling a tide of shadowy sand at him with both hands, which he rolled to the side to dodge. Again, this time with a grunt as dark fire raced towards Jack unleashing an explosion of blue, frigid crystal from the air with a downward slice of his staff. The darkness dissipated as cold blasted through it towards Pitch. A mixture of ice, sand, smoke, and snow littered the air, blocking out the entire world as Jack landed to hunt for him on foot. He startled as he heard a laugh behind him, and turned warily around to the sound of derisive clapping.

"Magnificent, Jack. Truly, a feat that could only be accomplished by the both of us." Pitch nodded at the large, curling, fragmented tendrils of ice tipped with steaming darkness. "Think of what we could do, Jack! What goes together better than cold," he said, gesturing at him, then at himself, "and dark? Imagine it! The good ol' days, back again! Ruling the world, filling it with Pitch Black—"

"—And Jack Frost," he finished for him, staring at him through narrowed eyes.

"Exactly. Both of us will be believed in—"

"The last time I checked, 'believe' wasn't synonymous with 'fear'," Sera said from a few yards behind Jack. The smoke cleared out, revealing a solid black ten rating shakily written with a Sharpie marker on a notepad borrowed from North's workshop in her hand.

"And that's not what I want." Jack shook his head slightly as if to clear it from Pitch's tempting, venomous manipulations. "Go home, Pitch, before you bite off more than you can chew." He turned his back to him, moving towards Sera. Maybe Pitch didn't deserve the easy way out, but he felt like he had to prove to him that he was nothing like him. If their situations were switched, he knew Pitch would have killed him then and there without showing any pity or mercy. From behind, Pitch laughed again.

"Very well. You want to be left alone? Done. Have it your way, Jack. But first, I'll make you a deal you can't refuse."

Jack realized what he was going to do the instant before he appeared behind Sera in a scatter of sand. He pointed his staff at him, baring his teeth as Pitch grasped her hood and tore it from her head, reaching in with cruel fingers to rip the fairy curled in her hair.

"The staff, Jack," he snarled. "You have a bad habit of interfering. Give me the staff, and I'll let her go. Both of them," he added as an afterthought as he reached over to wrap his arm around Sera. Baby-tooth shook her head while chirping frantically at Jack while Sera threatened to draw on his face with her Sharpie if he didn't let them go. Her notebook and Sharpie promptly exploded into a cloud of sand, and she sighed after a moment. "Give it to me," he hissed, tightening his grip on Baby-tooth and sending a slowly moving mass of dark sand up Sera's arms. They saw the indecision on his face, the hopelessness that slowly replaced ferocity, creating a smile on Pitch's face and causing Baby-tooth's protests to die down to frightened squeaks.

"Jack, you sure as hell are not going to give that motherfucker—" That was as far as Sera got before Pitch gagged her with a band of shadow, efficiently silencing her. The wind howled around them as he clenched his staff so hard his knuckles turned white. He didn't have a choice.

He gave Pitch the staff.

Almost immediately it turned to onyx as Pitch let go of Baby-tooth to catch it. He inhaled loudly, roots of darkness spreading from where it touched the ground to curl around his and Sera's feet while Baby-tooth fluttered over to Jack for safety.

"Alright," Jack said warily, the way he might talk to a starving shark. "You have it. Now give her back." Pitch simply looked at him with that lofty, smug smile, a look that send a chill down his spine.

"No."

He vanished, causing Jack to panic for a moment before he located them again, standing on the edge of a cliff that tumbled into snowy darkness.

"You said you didn't want what I offered. A partnership, a family, more belief than a pitiful soul like you could ever hope for. You want to be alone? So be alone," he shouted. The shadows abruptly withdrew themselves from their crawling path on her body. She had but a moment to gasp for air before he threw her off down into the abyss.

"Sera!"

Pitch smiled again, malevolently as Jack sprinted towards him. He grasped the staff in both hands just as Jack had almost reached him, and brought it over his knee.

The staff broke in half.

Pain forced itself out of his throat in a sound he couldn't control. How did one describe what it felt like to have oneself break in half? It felt like every single bone in his body broke at that instant, like his guts were cut out and strung on a rope, like agony was the base of his blood, coursing through every vein, every artery. He stopped mid-stride, collapsing with his arms tight around his core as if he could somehow stop the pain with that simple action, as if that was the only thing keeping him alive and together. He was given no respite as Pitch blasted a bolt of sand into him, wracking his body further as he slammed into the wall of the crevice and fell to the unforgiving ice below. He gritted his teeth together to stop the horrible sound, clenching his fists and arching his back. A trailing laugh accompanied the pieces of his staff that clattered to the ground next to him, and then Pitch was gone.

He was alone.

Eventually the agony released its brutal grip on him, fading away in pulses and waves. When he opened his eyes again, he was greeted by a splash of blood vibrant against the white ice and the sound of incessant chirping. He groaned and followed its brief trail which led to Baby-tooth meeping in a frenzy over a crumpled, broken form.

Sera.

No.

He forced himself to overcome the deep ache setting into his body, dragging himself over to them. Where his immortality had let him survive the fall, her human body hadn't. Only the near-silent murmurs coming from lips blue with cold showed she was still alive. She was soothing Baby-tooth's sobs, her voice soft and nonexistent at times. Her eyes, the only trace of green in this arctic wasteland, were rimmed by tired, purple bruises under them. They opened and found his as he came close, her lips curving up slightly as thin trails of blood dripped down cheeks hollowed from lack of sleep.

"Well, I guess I won't be freezing to death," she said faintly, a small chuckle disturbing her shivering form. "Bleeding out is just as good."

"Sera—" Was that voice choked with tears, that pained rasp him? Is that what he sounded like?

"Let me have my moment, Jack. I always wanted to go out in flames, but I don't really have time for the melodramatic soliloquy." How could she joke at this, when her lifeblood was pooling on the ice, a horrible crimson against the stark white? When her bones were snapped in odd angles, breaking the skin at places? When it felt like he was about to be ripped in half again? She continued, her voice getting progressively softer.

"Which is kind of unfair, because Pitch..." The rest she muttered to herself, her head lolling towards him. "Anyways, I'll skip the you-better-not-go-emo-on-me-or-else part and skip straight away to the don't-blame-yourself-yada-yada-important-stuff part. So, yeah," she whispered, suppressing a cough. "Don't blame yourself, capisce?"

"Sera, oh God. I—"

"Now for the touching anecdote part," she said, continuing over his tortured words. Which was probably a good thing, because he was so close to breaking down he didn't know what would happen if he thought of anything beyond now. "If I could do one thing over again, could do one more thing before I kick the bucket, know what it would be? Know what my one regret that has haunted me for my entire life and will continue to haunt me is?"

Jack looked at her, gently propping her head against his knees with Baby-tooth, now quiet, sitting on her shoulder. Water dripped from his cheek and crystallized on hers, which he stoically ignored. Her voice was so soft that he had to strain to hear.

"Dying a virgin."

She burst into laughter, agony wracking her body as she desperately tried to stop it. "Oh my God," she gasped, "you should see the look on your face. I'm kidding, I'm kidding! What I really wanted to do was troll someone right before I died. I should get a spot in the Troll Hall of Fame for that." He swore under his breath, so emotionally drained that he couldn't laugh.

"I'm glad you're having fun," he snapped, his voice cracking. Her amusement died out, and she regarded him with that sad little smile.

"I... sorry..." she breathed. "Next is... the part... where I thank you... for being..." He propped her head up with his hand, leaning close to her as her voice almost completely gave away while his other hand brushed her tears of pain and his of grief away from her face.

"Oh, fuck it."

With the last of her strength, she reached up with her one hand that was still functional and curled it around the nape of his neck, entwining her bloodied fingers in his snowy hair and pulling him close.

And instead of trolling consuming her last breath, it was he who she graced with that last ember of life as she kissed him.