All about the bed of Jack Frost lay upturned chairs and water, towels and wet rags that had been used at some point to treat him before being discarded.
Bunny was not the cleanest of the Guardians. The buckets that had once held snow now lay empty on the ground, dripping from the melted ice. No one had bothered to refill them, and Bunny had to stay with Jack all the time.
He was still, almost impossibly still. His breaths were rare and shallow, and Bunny sat down for the first time in the whole night. The room lit up in a pale orange glow, only candles working now it was so cold in there. Occasionally they would blow out from fierce winds, but Bunny would always relight them. He watched the reflections flicker on Jack's face and thought. Thinking was all he could do. Something had to be done, but what else could he possibly do? His mind went blank.
'Look...' Bunny started, cringing that he was admitting things to his "enemy". '...It's been a while now. As in, since you became a Guardian... Gah!' he sighed and rubbed his eyes. 'I'm talking to someone who can't even hear me...'
Jack didn't react to Bunny's voice, as much as the rabbit would have liked him to. He placed another wet flannel on Jack's forehead, and his whole head moved slightly even from that gentle force.
'You fit right in, Jack, so don't go leaving us just yet, alright?' Bunny softly patted the sleeping boy's hand. 'I spent so long hating you, wanting to wipe you from the face of the planet, but... I was so blind. I never took even a minute to find out about you. I had no idea you didn't know about your past, and...' he had a sudden realisation. 'You've never told us anything about them since you found them.'
Bunny moved a few white hairs out of Jack's eyes, looking at his features as if they were a word he didn't know. 'Who were you, Jack Frost...?' he said quietly, trying to recollect any time Jack had talked about his past. 'You never said... You're so secretive, and we never even notice. What was it like when you were young? And Jack, look...' he paused and took a breath. 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all the rude things I've ever said, for treating you badly. You deserve no less respect than we do, and I can't help feeling you don't get it. I'm sorry for all those times I teased you because nobody believed in you. Jack... Truly, I can't imagine what it must have been like to live for three hundred years without anyone seeing you. I had to experience it only for a day, and that single day nearly killed me. I'm sorry. How alone you must have been- I never considered it. Alone... I suppose we all are sometimes.' he smiled, but he couldn't help feeling that he was missing something.
'Jack, please... Can you just... Just wake up?' tears gathered in Bunny's eyes. 'I don't know what to do Jack, I don't know how to fix you, but I need to. Just... Tell me what's wrong, and I'll do everything... Everything in my power to stop it. Just wake up for one minute and tell me what to do, then I can get on with it. Ple-please Jack... Can you do that for me?' he stared at the boy, his eyes flicking about his rosy tinted cheeks. He swallowed and forced himself not to get upset, holding his nose to his hand. He choked hard on his breath, containing a sob with all of his might.
Bunny thought about everything that had happened over the past few months, everything since Pitch had returned. In a way, Jack had sort of brought the Guardians together. Before he was chosen, they would bicker and get on each other's nerves, but now they were much closer. They hadn't spent enough time with one another before then- it had been years since they had met up at the Pole until Pitch returned. In a weird sort of way, his return had been good. He thought about their experience with the kids- Jamie had played such an important part in their struggle, and he couldn't think of what Jack must have felt when he was seen for the first time.
Bunny suddenly sat up. He looked wide eyed at the deep sleeping Guardian then towards the window. His chin lifted and he smiled the biggest grin he had put on in days- weeks, even. He whispered toward the broken glass, hope finding it's way back into him. 'Jamie!'