Heeeey.
So, um, this chapter is...well.
A warning. The dream sequence in this one gets a bit dark. Just so you know.
Songs this chapter was written to: Prelude 12/21 by AFI; Smooth Criminal the Alien Ant Farm cover; Pet by A Perfect Circle; and Demons by Imagine Dragons.

Again, the dream sequence. Seriously. I warn you. It's darker than my usual.

All farewells should be sudden.

-Lord Byron, Sardanaplus, 1821

Present:

Bunny gave an exhausted sigh as he trudged up the hill to the cottage. He'd only watched a few egg hunts this time around, unlike previous years, and only stayed for those because of last year's mishap. Luckily it hadn't been bad in the long run and attendance, from what he'd seen, was back up. He would have stayed, except…

He groaned, irritated with himself. He shouldn't have yelled at Jack. He'd just been looking out for Bunny. Maybe he'd been tired and stressed, but that was no excuse for it. He'd gone and thrown a bit of a tantrum too, leaving early like he had. He just knew Jack must've gone to bed upset.

Bunny peeked around the cottage, surprised when he didn't see anyone. Strange, it was nearly noon. He'd expected Jack to be up by now. "Jack?" he called, just in case. There was no response.

Bunny climbed down into the halls under the cottage, the light-flowers coming to life as he jumped along. "Jack?" he called again.

He entered the nest room, but Jack was nowhere to be seen. His ears drooped. Jack must have decided to kip elsewhere.

He didn't bother taking his bandolier off as he crawled into the bed, too exhausted and, now, downhearted to bother with it. He'd have to apologize whenever Jack came home.

…huh. He wondered when he'd started thinking of it as being their home and not just his.

Bunny reached out as he settled in, and grabbed Jack's favorite quilt. He pulled it close, hoping he might catch some of Jack's scent still on it. He was used to having Jack beside him when he slept now. He took a deep breath, and paused. Odd. Jack's scent was stronger than he'd expected, if Jack had slept elsewhere the night before. He sniffed again, brow ridges furrowing. It was almost like...Jack had slept in the nest.

But then where was he?

He gave another sniff, and his ears shot straight up as he jerked back. Was that…? He leaned forward, nose twitching as he checked over every inch of the quilt for the barest traces…

He stiffened. There was no doubt about it. Fear. Jack had left the barest traces of fear behind.

But where was he? Unless it was another dream, Jack had nothing to fear in the Warren. And Bunny didn't think Jack would leave if he was really afraid.

He sat up, unease rolling in his gut, and scanned the room. Nothing seemed amiss at first, and he nearly reconciled himself with the knowledge that Jack really must have left the Warren.

Until he spotted a small object in the corner. Bunny climbed out of the nest. He picked it up, recognizing it instantly. A wooden horse, seeming smaller in his palm than Jack's. Jack kept it with him always, in his hoodie pocket or tucked away in the folds of his cloak.

"It's the first gift I ever got," Jack admitted, running his fingers over its head with care. "Phil made it for me. I carry it everywhere."

No matter how upset he was, Jack would never leave his horse behind.

Something was wrong.

He tucked the horse into his bandolier. Tapping his foot, he opened a tunnel, and dashed through, headed for the Pole. He sped across the snow, ignoring how uncomfortable and cold his feet were. He burst through the huge front doors, calling as he ran into the workshop. "North! North!"

"Bunny?"

He paused, looking up from the middle of the work floor to where North leaned over the second floor railing, staring at him like he'd gone mad.

Bunny jumped, bouncing off the wall and straight at North. He grabbed the railing and swung himself over, coming to a stop next to North.

"What is going on?" North looked him over, worry in his stance. "Why are you here, Bunny? Not that I mind when friends come—"

"It's Jack," Bunny interrupted. "Use the Aurora. He's missing."

"Bunny, explain what happened."

He breathed in slowly, struggling to control his anxiety. "I got home, and Jack wasn't there. I figured he'd kipped elsewhere, since we'd had a blue before I left, but then I smelled fear in the nest—"

"He sleeps in your nest?"

"North. Now is not the time."

North held up his hands. "My apologies."

"Continue Bunny, please," Tooth urged. Baby Tooth was perched on her shoulder, fairly jittery with nervous energy. Several other fairies fluttered around her.

Leaning against the wall was Phil, arms crossed and even more somber than usual. Another yeti, Debbie, hovered at his side, looking worried. Sandy floated near the globe, appearing deep in thought.

"I might have brushed off the fear and kept thinking he'd just gone off to be alone, but then I found this." Bunny pulled out the wooden horse. "Jack always has it with him."

"He might have forgotten it," North pointed out.

"You don't understand, mate." He shook the horse lightly. "He never leaves it. It's his treasure."

A big hand closed over the horse, and Bunny jolted because he hadn't even realized Phil had been approaching him. He let Phil take it, and the yeti held the horse in his palm. Phil stared at it, then closed his fingers over it, nearly hiding the entire thing. He squeezed it so hard, Bunny feared Phil might accidentally break it.

Phil took a heavy, shuddering exhale, and clutched the horse to his chest. Bunny looked Phil straight in the eye. "We'll find him," he assured. Phil nodded.

"But why?" Tooth suddenly asked. "Who would take Jack? There aren't many who even know about him yet."

Sandy, looking serious, slowly pulled up an image of Pitch.

"Perhaps." North turned to Bunny. "Has Jack said anything to you about Pitch and his dreams since the wendigo?"

Bunny outlined what he knew, ending with the changing eye colors when Jack had rejected Kozmotis.

"He's had another dream, but he didn't tell me about that one. I don't think he's had any others."

"Jack's the one who was thwarting him last year, too." Tooth brought a hand to her mouth in concern. "You don't think he remembers Jack as Jackson, do you?"

"If he does, Jack hasn't mentioned knowing," Bunny said. "And it can't be a good thing."

Bunny suddenly froze. His ears shot up. "Well if it is Pitch, we're about to find out."

"How?"

"Because," he said, slowly, "Jack's using his anklet."

He tapped open a tunnel, and they all tumbled in, racing for Jack.

Jack searched the bars of the hanging cage over for a weak spot once more. He'd done it several times already, and knew there were none, but it was worth a shot. Frustrated, he shoved the bars, which accomplished nothing. If only he had his staff.

"Didn't anyone tell you to control your temper, Jackson?"

Jack scowled at Pitch, who floated on a cloud of black sand. "Pitch."

"It's good to see you're awake…and you remember me now, don't you?"

"How did you know about that?"

"You're not hard to keep tabs on, Jack, even in that little rabbit's haven you've holed yourself into recently."

"How did you break into the Warren?" Jack demanded, gripping the bars of his cage in a white knuckled hold.

Pitch laughed. He floated a bit closer on his cloud of black sand, and with a wave of his hand sent a small burst of it to knock into the cage, setting it rocking. "Break in? How rude, Jack. Why, I was practically invited."

Jack swayed in the cage, wishing fervently that Pitch didn't have a thing for hanging cages. Once he caught his balance he repeated, "How?"

Pitch's smirk was sly and mocking. "Well Jack, it started with a quilt."

Jack's eyes went wide. "My quilt?"

"And other things."

"My things?" Did that include his angel? He grit his teeth. "What did you…?"

Pitch cocked his head with a small shrug. "It's not hard to lace things with sand, Jackson. Unfortunately you'd already hidden yourself away by the time I'd built up enough strength once more, so I expected I'd just have to wait until you came back." His eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. "But you didn't, did you? Luckily the rabbit seemed quite eager to collect your things for you. Normally I couldn't set foot in that hole in the ground, but since it was him bringing it all in, all I had to do was wait until enough sand got brought over to make a portal."

"Why?" Jack shook his head forcefully. "Why are you even doing this?"

"Because you're mine, Jack." The echo of long ago words unsettled Jack.

"No," he asserted, "I'm not."

"But you are." Pitch circled the cage. "You made Pitchiner fall in love with you, remember? Which translated over to quite a fixation on my part."

He ceased his circles, and smiled gratefully at Jack. "I must thank you. Until the wendigo attacked you, he'd only show himself to stare longingly at families for such brief moments. And then you called him forth and, perfectly enough, made him fall in love, despite the circumstances in which he'd been called. And no matter how pure the love, there will always be jealousy, giving me just enough room to get in and begin twisting things around.

"You're the reason he scared that boy away?" Jack frowned, understanding coming in on a slow tide. "That he was so possessive?"

"It was really too easy. He was jealous. And jealousy is just fear wearing anger's mask and envy's crown." Pitch gave Jack a look of pity. "But then you rejected him, and it tore his defenses so much it left poor Kozmotis wide open for me to take control once more, and finally put him down."

Jack's hands went slack on the bars. Kozmotis was…

He shuddered. "What do you want from me?"

"What I've wanted since Pitchiner handed over this little fixation. I wanted to make you mine as a human, but by the time I got back to take you away, after preparing this place, these cages," Pitch gestured around them, "you had disappeared, and I was unable to find you. If only the Man in the Moon hadn't put that spell on you, I'd have found you much faster. I did peek in that night, but I suppose I just didn't see you." He said it harshly, meaning for it to hurt Jack the way he knew it would. "But now I'm going to keep you properly."

Pitch drifted closer. "First must come your punishment, you understand. You must be taught discipline."

Pitch held up a hand, a wisp of black sand twining through his fingers. It was so black the granules blended together, so it seemed more like a crude slick of oil than sand. "I've made sure it's potent, just for you." He said it like it was a privilege.

The sand crept towards him, and Jack scrambled to the back of the cage. "You," he started, "once said your name was Kozmotis. Is that still even a little bit true?"

If Kozmotis was still in there, even a little bit…

He wanted his friend back.

Pitch paused, and then seemed endeared. "Oh, Jackson, you think he's still alive." Pitch sent the sand forward. "No, Jack. Kozmotis is dead, and you're the one that let me kill him.

Guilt cut through his chest. "They'll find me," he declared, summoning courage he wasn't sure was real. They had to realize something was wrong, at least—he'd left the horse for Bunny, and Bunny had to know Jack wouldn't do that.

"How, Jack? They don't even know where to look."

The sand hit his face, and Jack fell into a nightmare.

Twisted Dream:

The wendigo's teeth sank into his stomach, blood dripping down his chest to slide down his neck. It dribbled onto his face and in his mouth, choking his screams. The wendigo slurped up the blood as Jack cried. It chewed on the fat and muscle. Blood now dripped from Jack's hair in a combined mess with his tears.

The wendigo ate him alive.

"Push through, wrap the yarn, pull through, and slide off…"

Jack's mother took her hands off of his. Jack turned to her in his chair to where she kneeled at his side. "Mom?"

She took one of the knitting needles from him, the yarn stitches pulled off to leave it bare. As he watched, she brought the point to her eye. "Take a break, Jackson." She pushed the needle in, but it slipped off to the side. She repositioned, and this time found purchase as she stabbed the needle slowly into her eye. "It will never come out right if you force it."

"Stop it!" Jack threw himself at her, trying to pull the knitting needle out, but her grip was too strong. She kept pushing it in further and further, blood streaming from her eye and painting his and her fingers red. He sobbed. "Please stop it, Mammy!"

She did, but pushed his hands away before he could pull the needle out. She cupped his face, streaking blood across his cheeks. Again she was too strong, and he couldn't pull away. "You're so handsome, Jackson," she said. "Just like your father. You have his face and his hair."

Jack, shaking and sobbing, found he couldn't not say the words. "But I have your eyes."

She smiled, warm and sweet as blood dripped from her eye and drenched her face and dress. She swiped her thumb under his eye, leaving a line of red behind. She hooked a finger next to his eye, nail poking it gently on the edge. "You do." She kissed his forehead, and ripped his eye out.

"But you can be reckless, too. I've seen you go on your hikes, coming home barefoot and bleeding because you lost your footing on a hill or some other disaster." Samuel twisted his leg until it broke, and then kept twisting. Horrible cracks rent the air. The sound of ripping skin was loud as Samuel Overland tore his own leg off.

He tore open the thigh of his removed leg, digging through muscle until he found bone. Samuel yanked with a grunt, and after a high snap and wet squelch held up his femur. Bits of flesh clung to it, and it dripped, red and bloody. He handed it to Jack. "So I want you to take this."

Jack, unable to obey his will, was forced by his own body to take the bone in hand. Barely able to hear past his own warbled keening, he found himself saying, "It's smooth."

"I want you to carve the rest," Samuel explained. The snow all around him was stained red in bright splotches. "Make it your own."

Jack gripped the bone tight, dry heaves choking in his throat. "Thank you, Dad."

Samuel gave a rare, gentle smile. "I'm proud of you, Jack."

Jack whimpered.

She took a step that could barely be called a step, gasping when the ice made a sharp sound and splintered. "That's it; that's it," he reassured. She needed to keep going, he couldn't reach her from here. "Two."

She stepped again, crying out when the ice made a terrible groan.

"Three." He reached.

But instead of hooking her around the waist, he watched himself shove the crook into her solar plexus, knocking her onto her back. She cried out in pain. She sat up, betrayal written across her face in bold lettering, and the ice gave out under her. She plunged into the lake.

"No," he whispered. He'd shoved her. He'd pushed her. He'd—he'd…

…he'd killed her.

"No!" He scrabbled forward, but the ice was frozen over, and no matter how much he pounded, until his knuckles were broken and bloody, he couldn't even make a crack.

"Emma!" he screamed. "Emma!"

He couldn't save her.

Present:

Jack stared through the bars for several minutes after waking, unable to summon the will to move. His jaw ached. He'd been gritting his teeth in his sleep. His throat hurt. He'd been trying to scream, too.

He curled into a ball, wiping tears and snot from his face with his sleeve. He heard a clank.

Lifting up just enough to see what the sound was, he spotted the anklet, which had slipped out from under his pant leg.

The anklet.

Jack scrambled into a sitting position, pulling it from his foot. He cradled the anklet in his hands. This was it. He could get help with this. But he had to get it to earth…

Jack jumped to his feet, and the cage swayed. He couldn't break the bars—they were too strong. He couldn't get out of the cage. But he didn't need to get out to get to ground.

Jack placed his hands as far up as he could, and sent cold to the metal that kept the cage hanging from the ceiling. He tried to weaken the metal so it would break, but wasn't strong enough without his staff, wherever Pitch had hidden it.

He stopped and began running from side to side, throwing himself into the bars. He did all he could to get the cage rocking, hoping that the weakened metal wouldn't hold.

Luckily it didn't, and the cage plummeted to the ground with a crash. Jack cried out as he landed wrong on his arm, a crack sounding. The cage rolled before coming to a stop. Jack sat up, and bit back a loud yelp when pain shot up his arm. Definitely broken, then.

But he was on the ground now, and he had to be quick—Pitch had surely heard the crash and would come to investigate. He reached through the bars with the anklet, touching it to the ground. He felt the magic in it respond.

He took a deep, painful breath. He called a single word; a name. "Aster!"

Ahem.
I warned you about the dream? I honestly didn't expect it to come out quite so bad as it did, but oh well. I like it.
Erm. Yeah.
It really makes me glad how many of you were holding out hope for Kozmotis. But he's dead. (And yes, he really is dead. Kozmotis is gone now. He's been gone ever since that day. Rejected or not, if Kozmotis had still been around he would never have sat back while Pitch tried to do bad things to Jack.)
*deep breath* Hope you guys are ready. Next chapter's gonna be a fallout. And things...*shifty eyes*