A/N: The Arch that you've all been waiting for!
Post Butterfly Affect!
Jack thought that this was far too much trouble to go through for him. Really, it was a overreaction if he'd ever seen one. Sure, the last time he had gone off on his own, he'd been injured and nearly died, but that didn't mean that Seasonal Spirits were meant to be locked up!
It was only days after the end fight with Pitch that Jack had woken up. Making all those Snow Figures and then summoning so much snow had really wiped him out. It was strange to wake up so long after falling asleep, as being the Spirit of Winter, Jack could go years without sleep if he wanted to. He only usually slept when Sandy knocked him out with his dream sand every once in a while.
Jack groaned as he looked around the room he was in. It was bare and didn't have much inside of it, but it was a far better room than the infirmary that he'd woken up in last time. Beside's, white was one of his favorite colors, along with blue and oddly, green. Jack didn't really know why green was included in his favorites, but he bet it had something to do with his human life. Something he still only had vague recollections of.
"Jack!" Tooth's voice broke through his thoughts. "You're awake!"
Jack smiled at the queen and nodded. "Yep, and I feel a lot better. Where am I, anyways? This isn't the infirmary..."
Tooth giggled as the other three Guardians entered the room. "This is your room. There's not much in it now, but you can change that whenever you want."
Jack stared at her, wide eyed and more than a little surprised. "My room?" He whispered.
North laughed heartily, "Of course! You did not think we would let you out on your own after this, did you? No! You always welcome at Pole!"
"And Tooth Palace!" Tooth added happily. Baby Tooth squealed happily above him. Jack blinked, only just noticing her there.
"And the Warren, as long as you don't freeze everything," Bunny winked at him, and Jack thought that there should be a joke there, though he didn't know what it was. Bunny to be having the same feeling, because he looked momentarily confused.
Sandy flashed symbols above his head quickly and Jack smiled at the Sandman. "Thanks Sandy."
North, Tooth, and Bunny froze and looked back and forth real quickly, as if they could believe what had just transpired. "Mate," Bunny began. "How did you understand that?"
Jack frowned at them, "Sandy taught me a while ago! Um, not long after I first met him. It's not that hard, really, you just have to get the sequence right."
The other three Guardians blinked, before deciding that if they hadn't become fluent in symbols after thousands of years, they weren't going to become anymore fluent than they already were. Sandy just grinned happily at his young playmate. It had been a long time since Sandy had taught Jack to understand his symbols, and Sandy was glad to have someone who could understand him around. It was a nice change from being ignored all the time.
The yeti's fused over everything that Jack did, the Guardians worried about how he was feeling ans if anything hurt. They worried about how he felt, if he was eating enough, if his wounds were hurting too bad.
The concern was nice, it was new. He had been alone for a long time. He had thought that he would be alone for an even longer time, and here he was with a family and people who cared. North, the concerned and loving father figure spent time teaching him about so many different things. He was learning languages that he'd never known existed, but his favorite thing to learn was how to carve the sculptors that North did from the ice. North was even teaching him how to enchant them! It was so similar and yet so different from how he made his Snow Figures.
Tooth doted and worried upon him. It was after many of the interactions that Jack finally found her role in his new family. She was the mother, the one who cared for them all and made sure that they took care of themselves. She lavished Jack in attention and made sure that he was never too uncomfortable with something before doing it. Baby Tooth's role was easy to figure out. Baby Tooth, while she doted on him like Tooth, it was too a much lesser extent. Baby Tooth the sister, who Jack would protect and care for as well as he had his human sister.
Sandy was the easiest to figure out. Jack had always looked up to and adore the small dream-bringer. Sandy had played with him for centuries, finding the lonely spirit only two decades after his death. Sandy was a constant in his life, and while Jack didn't see Sandy as a father figure, he saw him as something close. It was North who took up the role of fathering him, but Jack didn't think any less of the playmate he had come to know for nearly his entire life as a Spirit. Sandy was his Uncle, the one who he looked to for fun and who took care of him when needed.
Bunnymund was the hardest to figure out, and Jack wasn't sure what the rabbit was to him for a long time. It was a couple weeks before, during on of their spats, that the Winter Child figured it out. Bunny was the overprotective, but easily annoyed, elder brother. Jack had thought the Pooka was going to have a heart attack when the elves had found the torch and accidently caught Jack's pant-leg with the flame. This was a bad thing for anyone, but being the Spirit of Winter, flame or heat of any kind was agony to him. He could handle low levels, but the torches at Santoff Claussen were far more powerful than those of ordinary mortals.
Bunny had doused the flame with water, Jack still wasn't sure where the water had come from, and had promptly taken the young spirit to the infirmary to get the burn, which was second degree at best, treated. After being assured that Jack was alright, the entire Pole could hear the yelling the Pooka was doing at the elves. It was a long time before the elves went anywhere near the rabbit (they still didn't). It was then that Jack had made the connection, because that was how he would have reacted if it was Eira in his place. The sensation of being protected like that was a new one (he'd had uncles, parents and a younger sister in his human life), but Jack felt that it was sensation that he could get used to. It felt nice not having to be terribly strong all the time.
That was how the first month that he was forced to stay in Santoff Claussen went. It was the second month where the real trouble began.
Jack loved his new family, he really did. But it had been a month, a very long and very stressful month of being inside and not being allowed out in worry of something happening to him. He had been understanding before, and he had done what he was asked and had stayed mostly inside where he was out of reach of anyone who wanted to cause him harm. And his new family wanted him to stay there for a least another month.
It was not going to end well, and the only Guardian that was on his side was Sandy, who knew that this was going to create a lot of problems.
Jack was a elemental spirit, the Winter Spirit. He didn't do heat, rain was a horrible experience, and he couldn't wear shoes without them freezing to his feet and cutting off his feeling of the Natural World around him. He was also not good with being kept inside.
The feeling of having a home was great and all, and Jack loved the fact that they wanted him around, but he was a Nature Spirit. Being locked down inside was horrible and it created a bad tempered spirit. Jack wanted to get back to doing his job, and he was already going be so far behind! It was winter in the Southern Hemisphere, and while Jack didn't always do much during that time (being mostly tropical), he had duties that couldn't be ignored forever!
Not to mention the other Spirits of the Seasons were going to murder him if he didn't go back to work soon. They had never liked Jack, probably due to his forever age being only 15, but they knew that he would never skip out on his job if he could help it. The Autumn Spirit would be the one that would take over until Jack went back to work, but that was not going to last long. It wouldn't take much more than another week before they went and complained to Mother Nature. Jack had only met the woman twice, and he already knew that getting on her bad side was the worst idea you could ever have.
Sure enough, on the second week of the month, Mother Nature showed up at the Pole, giving North and the other Guardians (not including Jack, as the yeti were keeping him busy so he didn't stumble on the meeting) a heat attack.
North was the first to recover, "Mother Nature? What are you doing at Pole?"
The beautiful woman looked at them, her eyes narrowed. North fought the urge to run, and gulped. He wasn't sure what had made her mad, but she was much worse than her father when something truly upset her. It was times like these that she resemble Pitch Black the most.
Bunny nodded, agreeing with North's question. "If this is about you're dad, we've already taken care of him. He shouldn't be back for a while."
That was when Mother Nature's gaze flattered. "Father? What does father have to do with anything? He hasn't had power since the Dark Ages!"
Bunny snorted, "We know, but Pitch made a comeback a month ago. Destroyed nearly all the belief in the world! Not to mention those bloody arrows that he made. I think I liked it better when he only used hand based weapons! He even managed to take out Easter and break into my Warren!"
Mother Nature jerked back, as if hit. It seemed like something in that sentence has set off alarm bells. "A month ago? What a coincidence, as a month ago my Winter Spirit went Missing."
"Jack?" Tooth exclaimed. "Jack's not missing, he's just recovering. The Man in the Moon chose him to be the new Guardian, and Pitch didn't take to kindly to him."
Mother Nature seethed. Of course this was her father's fault, only he would be stupid enough to risk the balance in an attempt at power. "What did he do, and why do I feel like I'm not going to like it?"
As North explained, Mother Nature sighed. She was going to have to relay this story to the other Seasons. They would keep pestering her about Jack not doing his job if she didn't, and she wasn't sure when the wounds would heal completely. Jack may have stopped the bleeding and was no longer in danger of dying from blood loss, but there was still the possibility that if he flew or moved to much that he could cause himself internal damaged. Not to mention that he had broken ribs and bruises everywhere that would make moving very painful.
"Tell him that I order him grounded until the wounds and ice are both gone," Mother Nature sighed. "He won't stop trying to get out otherwise. Winter literally pulls at his soul when he does not tend it and will keep doing so until my order reaches him."
"So that's why he's so restless!" Tooth exclaimed. "We were wondering, but that explains everything."
Mother Nature chuckled. "If you excuse me, I have to go inform my Autumn Spirit that he needs to tend to the Southern Hemisphere's winter with the Sprites that Jack has created." She disappeared as fast as she came, and they had to wonder just how she always managed to do that.
True to her words, Jack calmed himself as soon as he heard her orders. Jack, while being a Spirit of the Moon, was also a Spirit of Nature. The combination meant that on top of his duties as Winter, he had his job as a Guardians. This meant that he was going to split between the orders of both. If the Moon wanted one thing, and Mother Nature wanted another, Jack would be forced to do both, even if it went against both's orders. It was why they tried not to directly go against each other (which helped, because Jack was the only Spirit born of both of them, and this stopped the bickering that had been going on between the two for centuries).
That didn't mean he was any less stir crazy, however.
Well, this is the first part to a two part Arch. You can obviously guess what that Arch's going to be about. If you can't, I pray for your intelligence.
Magiccatprincess: I do too, because that role seems to be the best for him, even though he's older than Earth. I'll see what I can do, but no, I've never seen Private Practice. There was a little bit on that in this chapter, but while Tooth is the 'Mother' of the family, she's also their friend, so that may or may not happen depending on the way the arch's and one-shot's mold together.
summerbreezeplease: I'm glad! :D
Catflower Queen: Lol, you're reading my mind again! I hope you enjoyed the chapter, Jack's first two months were kinda boring (for him at least). The next part will be much more interesting! ;) (Hint: I was using one of your suggestions to write it!)
Witch08: I was even worse. I made myself cry and laugh at the last chapter. I thought that it was a good way to end the arch, but at the same time, that was one of my favorite plot lines! I was sad to see it go, but happy that it turned out so well. I hope that you like this mini-Arch as well!
AyameKitsune: Aw, thanks! I hope you like this chapter!
nightmre13: I don't speak dog, but don't worry, I believe you! I cried myself. O.O It was horrible, because I kept on writing and it kept getting sadder, and then I just cried. How embarrassing...
ThatOneFan: Yeah, I got the hang of it! I wasn't used to writing fanfiction, so I needed to just get a feel for the characters. Reading the books helped. While this isn't really about Guilty!Guardians, they'll end up appearing in other one-shots and Arch's. I love reading about them too!
GKC07NF: Everyone always does the snare, but I figured that Bunnymund would be on the lookout for those, so i tried something original! I felt that if Sophie could get in, what was stopping it from happening before, and that seemed like something that Jack would totally do. I think that people forget about MiM a lot, so I wanted to include him. After all, without him, Jack wouldn't be here! That would be funny, especially Bunny! I just might do that, just for kicks. I can so see the teasing that would happend.
Review! It makes me write faster!