A/N: So, just got the comforting news that there's an escaped meth head convict running around town and he has a lot of friends on my university campus. Ain't that sweet... Yeah. I'll be keeping my doors locked tonight. Anyways, here is the chapter of eleven, and I hope all you awesome people enjoy it and review so I have emails to answer tomorrow. I actually gave you a slightly optimistic ending. Don't worry though; it won't last long. Also I gave you Pitch actually trying to be helpful, for reasons that I'll get to next chapter-ish. As usual, enjoy!


It took Jack several seconds to reacquaint himself with reality. The dream and the fight and the room he was in now all blurred together in a panic until suddenly things sorted themselves out with a clash and a clang and he saw the other Guardians and Pitch and realized that they knew. They knew it all. What was it Pitch had said? They can see everything I can right now.

For a fraction of a second the others could see the hurt in his blue eyes but then just as quickly as it came it was gone, replaced by a mask of non-caring, well practiced over three centuries of use. He looked down at his bare chest where the hand print stood out so blatantly and frowned. "Where's my shirt?" He wanted to cover it up, he needed to cover up the mark because maybe if he did he could pretend that it didn't exist and everyone would stop staring at him. He spotted the shirt folded at the foot of the bed and snatched it up, throwing it over his head as fast as he could.

"Jack, mate," Bunny began, but the winter spirit cut him off at the pass.

"Can you just stop staring at me?" The blood rushed to his face, driven by discomfort and humiliation that he'd let himself become that exposed and right then he wanted nothing more than to take off for the south pole and go to the deepest point of the deepest ice cave he could find. An uncomfortable, tense silence filled the normally cheerful air until suddenly Pitch turned to the Guardians.

"Get out," he told them sharply. "He and I need to talk." The other Guardians resisted, reluctant to leave him with Jack, until finally Sandy intervened. He pointed to himself, then to Pitch, and then to the others. They can go, but I'm staying with you. Pitch nodded, and the others reluctantly left. Pitch turned to face Sandy. "Not a word of this conversation leaves this room. I don't want the others thinking I'm losing my edge." Sandy nodded slowly, a series of pictures flashing over his head. I wouldn't have allowed this if I didn't think you had something important to say.

"So what did you want to talk about?" Jack asked cautiously. Now that there were fewer people in the room, his hackles had gone down somewhat, but he was still on edge.

"I just wanted to tell you what I told them," Pitch responded, gesturing towards the door the others had left through. "And to pass on a bit of, friendly advice, you might call it. You are the only person who can break the spell Hate's put on you, and the only way you can do that is to let go of your hatred for yourself. If you don't, you will lose your mind to it. That would be what I told them."

"And the friendly advice?" Jack responded, not entirely sure he wanted to hear it.

"The friendly advice would be that I have a very personal experience of what it's like to lose yourself to darkness, and it's not pleasant on any level. So my suggestion is that you win this fight, unless you want to turn out like me." Pitch gave a grim, humorless smile. "And somehow I doubt that is the case. And know this- you are the only one who can get rid of the magic, but don't disregard those around you." He turned to leave before stopping and facing Jack again. "One last thing, though I never thought I'd hear myself saying these words- good luck, Frost. You're going to need it." He turned once again and left the room, followed by Sandy. Their business was done now, and Sandy had to ensure that Pitch got back through the portal. None of them the Nightmare King enough to let him leave on his own.

"What on earth am I going to do?" Jack whispered into the room. The silence was almost deafening, and he was afraid. Afraid of Not-Jack, afraid of having to face him down, and afraid of what the other Guardians would think. A golden glow preceded the Sandman through the door, and he floated over to the winter spirit, placing a gentle hand on his undamaged shoulder. He pointed to the door and a question mark formed over his head. Jack sighed.

"I might as well." Jack gathered his courage and seized his staff (eternally grateful that it had survived the attack), following Sandy to the globe room where the other Guardians were waiting. Jack tried his hardest to smile and pretend that nothing had changed, but it was just too much for him right now. Instead, he leaned on his staff and broke the silence with two words-

"You saw?" They simply nodded, unsure of how to reply, how to comfort him, how to pretend they had adjusted to the realization that the one thing Jack Frost, their Jack Frost, hated the most was himself. In the time since Pitch's defeat, they had come to care for the small winter spirit. He might have been something over three hundred years old, but he was still a child. He had been a child when he died and was a child now; his brain and his body had stopped developing when he fell through the ice and they wouldn't start again. He had been nobody's child for three centuries. But after the fight with Pitch, when Jack had finally taken his place among them, he had become their child. And now their child was in danger.

"Oh, Jack," Tooth said softly, darting over and hugging Jack tightly. Jack looked stunned for a second, still painfully unused to physical contact, before he slowly returned the gesture and slowly letting the tension drain out of his thin form. Finally he eased his way out of her grip and sat on the edge of a chair, perched like a bird and observing the others cautiously.

"Jack," North rumbled, doing his best not to startle the winter spirit. "We need to know what happened when you were missing. We will talk about... the rest of it later." Jack nodded wordlessly. "Why did he take you?" Jack shrugged, his voice mechanical.

"He said he was trying to take over the world, but to do that he needed to get rid of the Guardians so he decided to go through me. He said that I was the weak spot and-" Jack stopped, trying to gather his courage, studiously ignoring the others' faces "-and that once you've forced your way through the weak spot you can attack the rest of it more easily." By the time he was done, North had his hands clenched so tightly that his knuckles were white and Bunnymund was practically shaking with suppressed fury. Sandy rested a small hand on Jack's, brushing over the scratches and cuts and rope burn. Even without any words his message was clear: he tried, but he failed.

Jack smiled at Sandy, the first smile the Guardians had seen since they'd rescued him. It was only a hint of his normal wild grin, but it was better than seeing nothing and it set a small part of them at ease. A very small part. They knew there were some hard days coming, harder than any of them could anticipate, but as night fell over Santoff Claussen they pushed that to the back of their minds and sat in silence, doing their best to comfort their child.