A/N: I do not own the song "New Divide" by Linkin Park
Jack hushed the whimpering child and sang him a lullaby, but nearly every second he got more and more drowsy himself. Roxas eventually started to yawn and fall asleep. Jack fell asleep with Roxas in his arms. Roxas drifted off. Jamie stared up at the ceiling without a word, he's been doing so for the last ... he's not sure how long. His mind slowly processing all that'd happened. He knew Jack was asleep but would wake soon. He knew, from his research on Jack as a kid that something didn't add up to what Jack had told him when he was younger about his life. It had never occurred to him the entire thing might be just a fabrication. That everything except that one night... he couldn't be sure it was real. After a long moment of thinking it over he decided he needed to just be alone for a while and he left the pole without speaking to anyone. Jack awoke with a start, as if sensing something.
"Jamie." He called out, seeing the bed empty he thought maybe he just needed time to himself.
Jamie stuck his hands in his pockets after pulling up the hood. He wasn't sure what he felt about all this, but he knew he didn't like it; he walked slowly along a sandy beach of the Bahamas. Normally the heat should have made him uncomfortable but he felt perfectly fine, he figured that was part of his center... a power he didn't understand anymore than he seemed to understand the winter spirit he thought he knew. He realized that there was a question he needed answered... one that he wasn't sure he knew the answer to yet. Could he love someone who was, in truth, a stranger to him? Because he realized, that's what Jack was now. He had fallen in love with the winter spirit he'd thought he'd come to know over the years but it seemed to be nothing but a lie... He had fallen in love with a lie... so now what? He didn't notice, as he walked along the beach, the woman who was listening to a song as she stared out at the waves, not seeing him.
I remembered black skies
The lightning all around me
I remembered each flash as time began to blur
It seemed to fit, the sky above was dark with rain clouds. Was that why he didn't feel the heat he should or was it something else? His center? Or maybe he just didn't feel it because he didn't care...
Like a startling sign that fate had finally found me
And your voice is all I heard
That I get what I deserve
So give me reason, to prove me wrong... to wash this memory clean
Let the floods cross the distance in your eyes
Give me reason to fill this hole, connect the space between
Let it be enough to reach the truth that lies across this New Divide
A new divide... he felt like a rift had opened between him and Jack... no it was worse than that. It was like the Jack he'd known had been a mirror image and that image had just shattered. Leaving him lost and looking at the one who had cast that image; an image that had been a lie.
There was nothing in sight, but memories left abandoned
There was nowhere to hide, the ashes fell like snow...
And the ground caved in between where we were standing
And your voice was all I heard... that I get what I deserve
What was real? Was anything that Jack had told him true? All the snowball fights... all the laughter they had shared... was that a lie too? A play act so that Jamie couldn't see past to the truth? He felt himself sink into the sand. Did Jack even love him? Who was Jack? Really... who was that who had taken the place of the winter spirit he had fallen in love with? Why did those blue eyes haunt him? This wasn't right!
So give me reason, to prove me wrong... to wash this memory clean
Let the floods cross the distance in your eyes, across this New Divide
In every loss, in every lie, in every truth that you'd deny...
And each regret, and each goodbye was a mistake too great to hide...
And your voice was all I heard...
That I get what I deserve...
What he deserved... What did he deserve? He let out a cry of anguish and anger. Everything he had done had been FOR Jack! The spell he'd cast that had intertwined their fates... he never should have cast it... Jamie saw red. Nothing else for that moment, though he was still confused about the... thing that he had given everything to...
So give me reason, to prove me wrong... to wash this memory clean
Let the floods cross the distance in your eyes
Give me reason to fill this hole, connect the space between
Let it be enough to reach the truth that lies across this New Divide...
Across this New Divide
Across this New Divide
Yes. There was a division between him and "Jack Frost" now.
Jack winced, feeling confusion and anger over the bond for a moment.
"Jamie... I'm sorry." Jack murmured, though he knew that Jamie couldn't hear him; the anger was like a sharp dagger. Tears fell that day. Jack had Tooth watch over Roxas for him as he was still in pain, in more ways than one.
Bitterness made his anger at the other all the more sharp. He had given him so much! Hadn't he wrestled him from Jakoul's grip? Hadn't he abandoned his own body, left it to Gale... just to protect him?! He'd shared his fears... his secrets he hadn't told anyone... he'd shared his fantasies... his dreams... himself! He had gone through the tortures of hell... had given over his heart... and THIS was how he was repaid?! It was never enough was it? I was never enough for you... was I? He cried out in his mind as the anger gave way to anguish in the confusion of it all. One thing rang true though... he had been betrayed. I gave you everything... and you repay me with betrayal. He shunned the bond between them, he didn't care what Jack would think of it. What did it matter? Jack didn't trust him. How could he expect Jamie to believe anything that he had ever said now? I can't believe he played me this whole time... just so he could have a damn kid! This WHOLE time! I can't believe I was so stupid... He wept bitterly. Roxas. He had agreed to have a kid because had thought Jack loved him and he would have done anything to make Jack happy... Despite it all he couldn't do anything but love Roxas. It wasn't the child's fault that Jack had lied to him... tricked him... had used him... Jamie slammed his hands into the sand, screaming out his pain and anger against the winter spirit but again the anger didn't last. He couldn't hate Jack. No matter how much it hurt. Oh Gods did it hurt!
"Why me? Why did it have to be me!" He wailed to the ocean, but no one who was around could hear him and the cold winds that circled around him offered no comfort. The north wind could not understand why Jamie was in such pain, why he cried out as if someone had torn him asunder. She had answered his call, but she could not turn the place around them cold lest her warmer brethren be angered. In sympathy of their sister wind, a storm of great magnitude hit the beach; rain pelting as if to weep with the winter spirit child that shook with sobs that were drowned out by the peals of thunder that shook the sky.
Jack lay down for most of the day, healing as he waited for Jamie; he didn't move anymore; didn't speak.
Jamie sat down on a rock, watching the waves go in and out beneath him, time slowly slipping by but then again... what was time to a spirit? He had spent himself and now just watched the storm that raged before him; his gaze the soulless stare of a doll. It's a few hours before Jamie decided to go home. Jamie returned to the place he'd called home since becoming a spirit, but he didn't say anything to the empty place. He still hadn't found an answer to a question that haunted him. Did he still love him?
Jack gasped out in pain when the yetis put an IV in his arm to keep him fed and getting nutrients.
Jamie wandered the cavern for a while, examining things as if he'd never seen them before; he sighed inwardly, feeling a stranger in a place he had called home just the day before. How had things come to this? How could he feel like he was an intruder to a place he'd spent so many nights in... ?
There was still that small hole he remembered hibernating in... and how could he feel so alienated in a room where he could still remember echoes of the cries of pleasure that he had shared with him? How could it all seem like it was someone else's life that he was remembering instead of his own? There weren't any answers here either and he left the cavern for the pole. He waited on the balcony until Jack was asleep to visit Roxas. He quietly took him to a different room to play for a little while. He watched the boy build a tower using blocks and wondered if things weren't better when he was as innocent as the child before him who didn't understand his conflict and could not hope to for some time. Jack snored quite loudly, Roxas giggled.
"Dada snore loud."
"Yeah. He does." Jamie murmured. Having been silent for so long his own voice was a little strange to his own ears but he shook the notion away. He felt like a stranger even to himself today.
"Be good for him while I'm gone, yeah? I promise I'll visit when I can." After a while he picked him up and kissed him, making sure he was fed before settling Roxas back near Jack and leaving again. He wasn't sure what he was really looking for, he just knew he needed to be away for a while. To sort everything out for himself and figure out just what it was he really wanted to do with the rest of his existence. Roxas grabbed Jamie's hand before he set him down.
"Where you gwo pawpa?" He asked tiredly, he was falling asleep.
"I'm just going out. I have to think about some things, grown up things. I promise I'll be back to visit you as soon as I can. I love you." He gently pressed a kiss to Roxas' forehead before gently prying himself from the boy and leaving. Roxas whimpered but otherwise stayed silent; Jack, on the other hand, was in the throes of a nightmare.
"No... please... I'm sorry Jamie... I'm sorry..." Jack cried, struggling to fight an invisible force. Jamie winced a little, but left. After a few minutes Sandy came in to try and soothe away the Nightmare with his sand. Jack whimpered, gasping he wake up instead; the attempt to soothe him hadn't worked.
"J-Jamie... w-where..." His eyes looked empty.
"Jamie." He whispered, tears started falling and the sobs were loud enough for Jamie to hear as he left the area. Sandy sadly shook his head, he hadn't seen the other winter spirit. Jamie flew off as fast as he could before the sound made him want to cry too. He found a beach close to the equator but his landing wasn't as smooth as he would like and he sank in the sand. He didn't wonder why Jack would lie. No, he had figured that one out. He'd been a naive child this entire time. Why else would Jack not tell him anything?
"He didn't have to lie... he could have just told me he didn't want to tell me..." He murmured in bitter hurt to himself. He had given Jack everything... why had he lied? After all he'd done and gone through... it really wasn't enough was it? Jamie wept bitterly, only feeling heart break and the deadly sharpness of betrayal... He wept himself to exhaustion and when he finally was able to rise again he only felt numb. There were no answers... and the one who could give them couldn't be trusted to tell him the truth. He needed to find himself. Find his purpose. To stop caring. Find a way to live without his heart...
