"Immortality is the condition of a dead man who doesn't believe he is dead."

~ H.L. Mencken

Chapter 10 - 28 Degrees C

"JACK!" Bunnymund yelled into the ice. He jumped to his paws and stamped on the crack he had finally formed. After the third stamp the crack started to grow but it was never going to break the ice. Bunnymund repositioned himself and thumped harder than he ever had "Don't you dare Jack!" he yelled as his paw started to chip away at the ice. His body was telling him to stop, the cold numbing his toe pads but he wouldn't stop, not until he had Jack in his arms. The ice crack now a little deeper he stamped his paw again.

Sandy eyes widened as he saw the last breath escape Jack's lips. He shook his head as he felt all hope drain from him, his sand fading and slowly dropped to the ground; Bunnymund's screams echoed in his head. His mouth dropped open as tears started to form in his eyes.

He looked up to the Pooka and eyes snapped back immediately as a large creature standing on two legs and arms in the air stood above Bunnymund. Sandy snapped back into life his golden body gleaming quickly and bolted towards Bunnymund.

The Pooka once not being able to see Jack focused on a large shadow towering him. He turned round staring at the large creature his eyes widening as his body froze and groaned as Sandy grabbed him, pushing him out of the way. Not a second later the giant creature slammed onto the ice, cracking it under its weight and plummeted into the icy water.

Bunnymund shook the snow off him, clambering out of Sandy's grip. "JACK!" he continued again as he leaped for the fresh hole in the ice.

He grounded to a halt as he watched a pair of furry round ears followed by a large black noes poke out of the water. Slowly a brown head shot out of the lake with a blue fabric in its mouth. The Pooka watched bewildered as a brown bear crawled out of the freezing water and onto the ice. Carrying in its mouth (like a bear would to its cub) a thin and unnervingly still body.

Bunnymund fixed to the spot seeing Jacks head flopped over as the bear continued to walk with him. Both animals ears shot up sharply to the sound of a strong whistle, followed by an encouraging call.

"Over here, come on!" The voice was soft, gentle and familiar to the Pooka's ears; Likewise for the brown bear as it picked up its pace and trotted over to the call.

Bunnymund hopped off the lake to the side to see a young girl running towards them and falling to her knees just before the lake, encouraging the bear closer. As she knelt the snow and frost around started to melt away and little flowers started to grow around her. Her bright red locks fell forward as she leant towards to the bear, stroking its head briefly before attending to the drenched body.

"Nay…" Bunnymund's voice sounded foreign as he watched the bear drop its catch and continue walking, shaking of the icy water before hovering next to its master. Meanwhile Jack lay deathly still. Bunnymund swallowed hard and jumped towards Jack. Sandy too not far behind.

The shadows under his features stood out sickly against his pale face. His eyebrows, even though put through so much stress and pain were relaxed, with gentle flakes of ice and snow frozen onto and in them. His eyes were closed but swollen, in a pinkish red colour on the eyelids but a deep, horrifying purple underneath the eyes. Trailing down from his eyebrow on the left side of his head were numerous trails of blood in a variety of directions, from where his head hung from different angles as it bled.

Though he had never seen the girl before Sandy knew she meant well. He flew over and down to Jacks left side (as the girl knelt on the right) and softly touched Jack's left hand, in fear that if he held it too tight it would break in his hand; Sandy had never seen anyone so fragile.

"C-can you help him?" Bunny ears were low as he continued to stand over them.

"I'll try. Aster I can't promise he'll…" The girl stopped unable to finish her sentence. Bunnymund just continued stare at Jack, his eyes watering up. He'd never felt so useless. His mind flooded with hatred and anger at himself.

I should have kept a closer eye on him, I should have been stronger for him.

Bunnymund tried to push the thoughts out of his head. He took a step forward his voice still quiet. "What do you need?" He murmured.

The girl didn't look to the Pooka as her fingers held up Jack's wrist pressed against a vain whilst her head hovered over his mouth and nose. "He'll need dry material, towels, blankets. Whatever you can find."

At that Bunnymund thumped his foot without hesitation and dived through his hole. Sandy turned as he watched Bunnymund set off before slowly turning to Jack again. He wrapped his fingers around the cold hand a little more, to support himself mainly.

The girl gently repositioned Jacks head, pushing down gently on his forehead with her right hand and lifting the chin with her left. Sandy watched as below his neck he saw Jack's veins, rather than a blue they were thick and black, close to the surface of his skin. Sandman couldn't help but wonder what Pitch had put him through. Part of him wanted to take away all of Jack's pain, but the other wanted to not know a thing about it. He knew if he reflected too much he too would go after Pitch alone driven by anger.

The girl then quickly propped open his mouth and lightly squeezed his nose before placing her mouth and to his blowing into his lungs.

Sandy watched as his chest struggled to rise, starting to freeze. After the fifth breath she moved back to his chest and locked her hands pushing down as she started counting. Sandy watched Jack's head shook from the force of the girl on his body.

She cursed and moved back to his mouth again breathing harder into his lungs as his chest rose again a little easier this time. She counted again as pushed down on his chest. Sandy heard the whoosh of a rabbit tunnel opening but didn't turn to look.

Bunnymund jumped out and knelt by Jacks feet on the now fresh green grass.

Jacks body twitched suddenly, his head rocked to the side as his mouth opened widely in a coughing fit. Sandy jumped out the way relief in his eyes while the girl rubbed his back encouraging him. Jack, his eyes still closed continued to cough up the ice water, his body shaking a little.

The girl sighed, "Thank goodness."

Jack was breathing, but by the looks of him he was still far from okay, let alone his usual self. Still rubbing Jack's back the girl stated "We need to get him dry." now looking to Bunnymund, who simply nodded in response. He was glad she was here, he wouldn't have a clue what to do in this situation. As Jack steadied, gasping through a sore throat she gently rolled him onto his back again.

She then rose onto her knees as she carefully opened Jacks right eye first, between her fingers, then carefully his left. Sandy saw that the once radiant blue eyes had gone, leaving a bland silver in its place and his pupils were not dilating in reaction to the light. Jack's eyes rolled shut slowly after; he started shivering as they started to remove his wet clothing. Shivering was a good sign at this stage. It meant his body was fighting.

"Son of a-" Bunnymund cursed under his breath. He slowly started to uncover his body the crimson stains revealed the terrible damage. Sandy gasped at the wounds as they slowly took off the wet clothes leaving him in his boxers.

They were bad, no, bad doesn't begin to cover it. "Aster, we can attend to them once he's stable. His heart and body are too weak to tend to anything else right now." the girl suggested as she started to dry Jack with one of the towels, Bunnymund just nodded again.

He couldn't even begin to imagine what Pitch put him through, and they could only see the physical side of thing at the moment. He dreaded to think what else Pitch did.

The name hissed in his head. One day, he was going to put him in his place - for good.

The group slowly and careful dried Jack with the towels. The girl took off her yellow winter coat, left in a beautiful white dress made out a light material. She took the first blanket from Bunnymund and wrapped his torso. Then another to cover his lower body.

"Sandy, can you get the plane ready? I won't able to transport him like this through the tunnels." Bunny suggested as he helped wrap up Jack. Sandy shot into the air violently nodding at his task and started conjuring up his golden sand.

The girl looked down onto the sleeping Jack and lifted up his right arm gently, pushing it through the coat sleeve. Bunnymund saw what she was doing and knelt down the opposite side of Jack as he helped her.

"What are you doing here?" He finally asked as she handed him the coat behind Jack's back

"Oh, I was just hanging around, making sure all the animals were out from hibernation. It is my job after all. You bring eggs to the children and I wake up the other animals maintaining a balance so they can collect enough food in time for winter."

"And the bear?" Bunny raised an eyebrow as he started to pick Jack carefully.

"Bastian?" she cocked her head to the side before laughing softly "He keeps me company..." she smiled as she reached up to scratch his neck as he sat behind her, giving a small growl of appreciation.

Sandy approached the pair and summoned to golden sand wisps which picked up the final blanket he was lying on. Once the blanket was crossed against his chest Sandy turned the two wisps into a buckle, that fastened it the cloak in place. He then sprinkled some more above Jack's head trying to give him pleasant dreams of the Dolphin again.

"Nice touch Sanderson," She smiled to him, as he returned the smile producing a question mark above his head and holding out his hand. She smiled and shook it playfully. "Please to meet you, my name is Mother Nature, but everyone calls me Nay."

Sandy smiled his eyes wide at meeting a new Immortal. He formed a hat above his head and took it off to thank Nay, before turning and continuing on the ever growing sand cloud, transforming it into their transport. He had to admit he was surprised that Mother Nature was so young!

The pair smiled but it got very tense very quickly. Nay saw the way Bunnymund was looking at Jack, he probably thought it was his fault. She lowered her eyes to the floor. "Aster, I… I heard about North."

Bunnymund looked up to her, his face holding a questioning look but her gaze stared back to the floor. "Ombric told me... about the factory too." She paused staring at the grass. She had heard the explosion from Santoff Claussen. Ombric had not long before sensed something was wrong and so had left Nay on her own with the other mythical creatures. Later on that day she had found the ruined site with the memorial plaque and placed her own respects along with a Russian doll, Sand present, and beautifully red painted and decorated Easter egg.

"I can't believe that he's actually..." Bunny couldn't say it, his left hand curling around Jacks shoulder as he held him.

Nay leant forward and placed a hand on his right shoulder, gently rubbing it, making him not have to say it. She knew how he felt. Bunnymund then scooped his right hand underneath Jack's legs and picked him up slowly rising to his paws. "Thanks for... for everything Nay, I don't know what we-"

Nay rose too, "Don't, he'll be alright. He's in safe arms." She smiled supporting the large Pooka. "Bring him to Santoff Claussen. Ombric can then look at the wounds, see if there's any of Pitch's contamination."

Bunnymund nodded, considering how and in what sense Nay meant 'contaminate', "Alright," he finally answered.

Nay smiled and walked away from Bunnymund calling Bastian to her side. The bear trotted to catch up to her, and Nay gently praised him by giving him a small scratch behind the ear.

"Nay," Bunnymund called to her, she turned, her hands clinging onto Bastian "Be careful ya little ankle biter."

Nay smiled, nodded once, and hopped onto Bastian's back, taking off into the forest.

End Chapter 10

Stay tuned for 25/12 for Chapter 11 - Green Coat

A.N.

RIGHT! NORTH'S OUT TONIGHT SO LEAVE YOUR STOCKINGS OUT AND SOME LOW CALORIE MINCE PIES OR COOKIES :)

I will be uploading tomorrow's chapter at 7:30 PM GMT (UK time) - So don't spend all day waiting for an Upload! Get off your internet and spend Christmas with someone special :3

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and were ever you are in the World I hope that you have a magnificent day!

And in view of the story! What did you think? What's your approach to Nay? Like/Hate/Marmite? :P

Haha, till tomorrow!

Charli xx