A/N: The first section in two lines- Pitch: Do you think I'm that stupid? Hate: It was worth a shot. XD I promised Pitch isn't gone from this story but he's going to have a few chapters of hiatus while I get the angst train rolling again and then he'll show up towards the end, so worry not. Also, tremendous shout-out to Cayran, for whom I am beta-ing and whose story 'The Longer I Run' is really good and should be read by all. Anyways, y'all enjoy and review! ^-^


Pitch Black couldn't help but laugh; that fool actually thought he had the drop in him in his own place, no less. No wonder they had fallen out after the plague; he couldn't imagine being allied with someone so stupid. Evidently Hate wanted to have a chat. Well, Pitch could do that, but he wasn't about to make pretenses. "Planning on speaking or would you like to skulk for a while longer?" he drawled. If Hate was surprised he covered it well.

"Ah, speaking of skulking, I was wondering where you'd run off to after your last loss." He smirked at Pitch's angry sneer. "How lucky to find you, now that I've learned you decided to help the Guardians." He spat the last two words and it was Pitch's turn to smirk.

"I don't know that 'help' is the operative word; rather 'not oppose'. Though you seem to have forgotten, I actually am not a fool and I know when I'll take one enemy over the other."

"Oh, so suddenly I'm the villain, am I?" Hate hissed in return. "I didn't notice you minding my influence very much during the Dark Ages. I still don't know why you got so upset over the Plague. Your power practically doubled and you didn't even thank me."

"Thank you for what? Wiping out half the population? I may be fueled by fear, but even I have standards, my old friend." Hate laughed loudly.

"Are you trying to tell me that death bothers you? Don't kid yourself, old friend." Pitch shrugged.

"I'll be honest, yes, it doesn't bother me as much as it does most people; I, however, don't revel in it." Hate sneered.

"What, too many memories of being human? I don't know why you hang onto them anyways, Pitch; Kozmotis is long gone." Pitch's face turned cold as a block of ice.

"Oh, come now, you believe that about as much as I do. Now if you haven't got anything else to say…" He gestured to the exit with a flourish. "I suggest you see yourself out before I have a few of my Nightmares attend to the task."

"We could work together again."

"As you told me, don't kid yourself. I'm not in the mood to let you kill everyone you clap eyes on. Just out of general principle, of course, but there is the more personal motivation that dead people can't feel fear. I've picked my side already." Hate glared at the Nightmare King.

"So you've chosen them, then. Alright, but you will regret it."

"Doubtful," Pitch answered dryly. The two spirits glared at one another for a few seconds longer before Hate turned on his heel, vanishing into the night and leaving the thoughtful Nightmare King behind him. Pitch sighed in irritation and crossed his arms, staring at the iron globe in front of him and watching the lights blink. He was really doing it; he was actually siding with the Guardians. The Man in the Moon must be rolling around laughing right now. After how many centuries of fighting, Pitch Black and the Guardians of Childhood had to work together. The irony actually almost hurt.


Hate was seething by the time he got back to his now partially destroyed lair. "That fool will not join us," he raged to the Fireling standing by his side. It stared back passively. It hadn't been given an order, so it simply did nothing, letting its master vent. "He is weaker than I thought. Nevertheless, it's only a matter of time before the boy breaks." A small smile crossed his face as he began to stop seeing red. He could still turn this around, and he would.

The world would be his to control, and Pitch Black and the Guardians would regret the day they ever dared to stand up against him; that he would make sure of. He turned his attention to Jack Frost. The winter spirit had proved to be far more resilient than Hate had anticipated, and it was really throwing a monkey wrench in the proceedings.

"Time for a little nudge, don't you think?" The Fireling continued to stare, and Hate couldn't suppress the slightest eye roll. The creatures really were thick, but that didn't mean they were no good. They were good at destruction, and that was all he needed them for. He continued to think out loud.

"Of course, it does me no good to wait for him to fall asleep, now does it? The blasted Sandman will just block me." He would have to come up with something new, something nice and tangible so that the other Guardians could see it. Let them watch and be unable to do anything; it would only make his job easier. Plus, well, it would be fun.


The Guardians had all stayed together through the night. Sandy commanded his dream sand from afar and Tooth set her most trusted fairies in charge of operations. None of them could bear to leave Jack alone, so quite simply they didn't. Sandy watched him alertly, but no phantoms showed up to plague his dreams, only dolphins and snowball fights. None of the others could quite decide if that was a good thing or a bad.

He woke up bleary-eyed but safe and sound, grumbling in protest when Bunny forced him to lie still long enough for the Pooka to change his bandages. Bunny grit his teeth when the injuries were exposed, and Jack's pale face got even paler. "I didn't know they were that bad," he muttered softly. He hissed when he touched one of the cuts gently and Bunny rolled his eyes.

"What did you expect would happen when you poked it, frostbite? They'll heal, though. What happened to you, mate? How did you get these?" Bunnymund wondered briefly if he should have approached that more subtly but that just wasn't how the Pooka did things. He had been tasked by North with finding out exactly what happened to the boy and dodging around things wouldn't make it any easier. Jack shrugged with his unhurt shoulder.

"Just a bad dream, like the other one that you guys saw."

"C'mon, frostbite, I need to hear the rest of it. What attacked you like that? What did you hear?" Jack glared at the Easter Bunny but there was no real feeling behind it, more of a habit than anything else. Finally, with great reluctance, he told his friend what happened.

"It was a wolf- well, sort of. It was a really messed up wolf and it jumped on me. I tried to fight it but there was fire all around and I was weak and he was there, telling me… I thought maybe I should just give up but then it bit me and it hurt so much I just sort of froze it on instinct. Then the fire went out and I woke up." Bunnymund didn't have to ask who the 'he' Jack had referred to was.

"What did he tell you?" Jack looked away at the wall, looking for all the world like he was ashamed; it was an expression that made Bunny want to go out and pull Hate around by his ankles for a long, long while.

"It was right after I thought about giving up; he asked me if I was giving up again. Like after Easter." Bunnymund winced. Easter was not among their fondest memories- not last Easter, leastways. "When I left to Antarctica." He was still staring at the wall quite deliberately.

"But you didn't," Bunny told him suddenly, breaking the silence. Jack looked at him with confusion.

"Didn't what?"

"Didn't give up, mate; not once, not even when we'd given up on you. You still came back." Jack frowned.

"But I still left," he whispered softly. Bunny placed a paw on his uninjured shoulder.

"Frostbite, you didn't leave because you gave up; you left because we did. We were all upset and angry and we took it out on you. I took it out on you, and it took me a bit to realize that I was wrong. What happened on Easter wasn't your fault and we shouldn't have blamed you for it." Jack gave a real, if small, smile.

"Never thought I'd hear you actually apologizing for something, cottontail." Bunny arched an eyebrow and grinned, taking the joke in his stride.

"Yeah well, you better mark it on your calendar, mate, 'cause I guarantee you it's not gonna happen again." Both Guardians gave genuine smiles, lapsing into a manageable silence, if not a comfortable one. Despite their long-running and ongoing rivalry, the two had grown to trust each other and make more jokes in jest than in insult. Bunnymund knew it would take a while before Jack would trust any of them entirely- after all, three hundred years was a lot to rectify- but he hoped that one day Jack would become as attached to them as they had to him. And when he hoped for something, he did his damnedest to make sure it came true. It was his job, after all.