AN: Hey guys! Sorry for the delay! My laptop has had A LOT of problems lately. I think I'm going to need to buy a new one soon. Whenever I tried to write new material the stupid thing would freeze and shut down. Several times I flipped my shit and nearly chucked my laptop at my bedroom wall. Ugh, so frustrating! Thought I would never get this chapter done.
I'm really going to try picking up the pace of this story. We don't have too long before this story ends(hopefully), but I feel like it's really starting to lag a bit. I want to keep the chapter count under thirty for my own personal preference.
Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians or Alice: Madness Returns.
I'll give you one more time
We'll give you one more fight
Said one more line
Be a riot, cause I know you
Robbers ~ The 1975
The frantic stammering poured out immediately, like water out of broken floodgates with the Spirit of Winter standing directly in raging rapids' path.
"I didn't know- I had no idea..."
Jack's voice sounded weak and small even to his own ears. He could only pray that it wouldn't humiliate him further by cracking like it constantly used to when he was thirteen.
A million different excuses, explanations, and justifications flashed through his discombobulated head all at once in the wake of the unexpected turn in events - the grand reveal, but he found himself unable to voice any of them, so caught off guard and disoriented by his unwanted dip in the shark-infested waters of Wonderland.
Alice continued to glare down at him expectantly with piercing green eyes, her hands planted firmly on her cocked, narrow hips.
Jack opened his mouth once more, but nothing came out. He only looked up at the angry woman from the ship's deck with wide eyes, stammering and soaking wet before finally realizing that he was truly and thoroughly busted, and that nothing he could say was going to save him from Alice's deadly wrath. He let out a heavy sigh as his head dropped in defeat. He stared intensely at the dark wood underneath his knees, desperately wishing it would just open up and swallow him whole before slowly letting his eyes slide shut.
"I'm sorry."
His apology hung thickly in the air, leaving only the trademark sound of churning waves to follow it.
Alice's scowl lessened a fraction at Frost's blatant surrender. From past experiences, she expected more of a fight from the volatile Winter spirit. It threw her for an unexpected loop and it only served to irritate her further when she realized she could practically feel how genuine his apology truly was. It caused a hitch in her sour mood and it made it difficult for her scowl to return to its earlier intensity.
Unsurprisingly, Alice fought and argued better when her opponent pushed back with just as much energy and emotion as her, like Bunny or the Mad Hatter. It was all about escalation and retaliation. What on earth was she suppose to do with this soaked, mangier-than-Cat, boy kneeling in front of her?
The very least he could do was stand up and look her defiantly in the eye just like he had done countless times before. Even if he was caught red-handed, the Jack Frost she came to know would've tacked on an extenuating - and no doubt creative - reason behind his admission as to why it was equally Alice's fault he felt he needed to snoop in the first place, all the while still somehow managing to maintain some small sliver of care-free innocence despite having been caught with his hand directly in the cookie jar.
Where was his fight now? His cockiness? Had he been that disturbed by her past?
Alice didn't have much time to dwell on that unpleasant thought - not that she felt robbed of it. Their gracious captain for the evening felt it necessary to leave his post by the stern of the ship and insert himself into the one-sided argument between her and Frost.
"Oh lord! I thought the pair of you were doomed for sure!" Mock turtle spoke up almost woefully in his low, awkward voice that sounded as if his muzzle was constantly congested.
The large, hybrid creature lugged his way across the deck of his beloved HMS Gryphon with his thick hooves pounding heavily against the dark wood. When he approached and his misshapen shadow fell over the two spirits, Jack briefly glanced up before doing a double-take. He let out a loud gasp and fell on to his side in shock as he stared openly at the bipedal steer with the turtle shell on its back. The Mock Turtle didn't seem to pay him much mind though. He only faced Alice with his black beady eyes and sagged expression, not at all noticing that the woman was standing in her "Don't-bother-me-with-your-petty-problems" stance.
"Those Shipwreck monstrosities have been bloody relentless since you left, Alice. Attacking my ship this way an' that every minute of every knit-picking day! You need to do somethin' about it! I've already lost my ship to them once before, I won't lose it again! I swear! I won't have it!"
"Not now, Admiral!" Alice snapped, just barely resisting the urge to tear out her own hair. Could she not get a few moments of peace without her creations immediately bombarding her with their never-ending demands? She promptly ignored any further conversation the hybrid steer attempted to strike up. He took a single step towards her, but Alice sharply waved him off, giving him a violent glare that explicitly told him that his dismissal was not a request.
A deep shudder ran through the Mock Turtle at the sight of one of Alice's more terrifying facial expressions and he found himself quickly moving back to his post, gladly removing himself from Alice's range. He felt a smidgen of pity for the white-haired stranger though. Whatever the boy had done to get Alice's dander up like it was, Mock Turtle didn't want to find out lest he make the same mistake somehow. So despite his mounting worry for his ship, the mutant bovine decided it was probably best he take Alice's rudeness with a grain of salt and quietly return to the head of his ship.
"Well?" Alice prompted impatiently, setting her jaw and crossing her arms under her chest. "Care to explain what those are and why they were in your possession?"
Jack slowly looked in between the frightening girl standing above him, and the unfolded pages that still rested on deck between them. His eyes ultimately settled blankly on the white sheets. "Honestly, I don't see anything that needs to be explained. It's pretty clear what they are and whatever you're thinking the reason is why I have them...well, it's probably correct."
Alice narrowed her eyes at the Winter spirit. "Are you being smart with me Frost?"
"No," He replied simply with his gaze still trained intensely on the papers. His tone was flat and his face lacked any sort of expression. "Did you find those in my room?"
It was more of a question than an accusation. Honestly, he was in no position to accuse Alice of anything, even if she did break into his room and rifled through his stuff. Compared to what he did to her, that was nothing but a minor indiscretion.
Of course though, the rueful young woman immediately went on the defensive. She bristled indignantly at his words. "Of course not! I'm nothing like you. I know how to respect people's privacy."
"How did you get these then?" Still, more of a question.
"From one of North's elves," Alice replied hotly with one hand resting on her cocked hip. "It was right after my...argument with Mr. Bunnymund. I came across the daft little thing in my guest room hallway, foolishly trying to ingest the paper. Naturally, when I snatched them away from it, I looked at them. And oh just imagine my surprise, Frost, when I discovered they were about me. You've been quite the little busybody lately, haven't you?"
"What do you want me to say, Alice?" Jack asked, finally mounting the courage to look up at her again. It was an honest to God question. Jack had no idea what he should say. He didn't expect to make it this far. "I couldn't handle being the odd man out, it practically drove me crazy in fact. Everybody knew this big bad secret about you except for me and I couldn't tough it out. I decided to pry into something very private instead of being a decent person and working up the courage to just ask you directly. It was a crappy thing for me to do and I feel terrible about it."
Thrown for another loop, Alice regarded him blatantly for several minutes as if he was some strange phenomenon that she couldn't quite get a solid handle on, but was determined to do so anyways.
"Three days," Alice stated rather randomly as she slowly shook her head. "I can't even fathom how much my life has changed in such a ridiculously short amount of time. For more than a century and a half, my life has had impeccable order. I had finally gained and sustained control over my life - something I have never had, even before the fire, and in one single blow - one single meeting, you shot it completely to hell!"
"I'm sorry?" Jack offered up tentatively.
"The mad thing is though, I saw it coming miles away," Alice laughed bitterly at herself, eyes rolling up towards the red and white striped sails of the Mock Turtle's ship. "I just knew, from the second I laid eyes on you, I just knew you were going to cause me nothing but trouble. You just had that ominous look about you. You're a malignant mess magnet."
Jack couldn't stop himself from cringing at her words.
You're Jack Frost! You make a mess wherever you go.
"Yeah," Jack mumbled as his head dipped again, his voice taking on a slight rasp. "So I've been told before...repeatedly."
Alice scoffed. "Surprise, surprise."
"Look, I didn't think-"
"No, you don't ever seem to do that, do you?"
On instinct he opened his mouth to reply, but nothing even remotely useful to his defense came to mind. "Okay, I deserved that one."
"That much and more, Frost."
Her tone was sharp and cutting much like it always was when she spoke to him, but not altogether scathing, which wasn't what Jack expected at all. In fact, Alice's overall presence wasn't nearly as murderous as it should've been.
At best, she seemed extremely peeved, leaving Jack to wonder why in the world he didn't have a sharp knife buried in his jugular right now. Overzealous hype and far-off assumptions once again drop-kicked Jack into the dark on everything he thought he knew about Alice Liddell. Never in his long life did Jack ever meet someone so unbelievably confusing and unpredictable. She never seemed to do or react to anything one expected her to. It was a constant back and forth thrill ride and Jack felt the overwhelming desire to abandon ship (pun not intended) before the never-ending whiplash made him vomit his guts out. Admittedly, Jack liked a little mystery and challenge in a woman, but this was just getting ridiculous.
Still though, it didn't take Jack very long to figure out the reasoning behind her lack of response, and when he did, he felt a sudden blush crawl across his face and a soul-crushing sense of humiliation settle deep within his constricted chest.
Laying on the deck, practically curled up in a ball, staring up at her with wide eyes while still soaked to the bone from his close encounter with the dreaded waters outside of the ship; Jack must've looked so small and pathetic, not even cutthroat Alice Liddell could bring herself to yell at him.
"It still haunts you," Alice suddenly said, so softly Jack nearly missed. "Doesn't it?"
"What?" There was a noticeable change in her eyes just then, something deep and searching, it made him a little uncomfortable.
Instead of responding, Alice let out a sigh before turning around and calling out to the turtle-cow hybrid from earlier.
"Admiral," Alice addressed him in her usual commanding tone. "Set course for the Vale of Tears."
"Wait, what?" Jack perked up. "No, I just came from there. Why are we backtracking?"
Alice didn't even bother looking at him as she strode right past him and made her way towards the rope riggings of the ship. "Because I said so, Frost. Now let me ask you a question, where exactly were you going? What was your end destination?"
Jack stalled for a second, not even realizing he was still sitting on the ship's deck. "Well, my end destination, in theory, was Santoff Claussen. I didn't want to be here, Alice. I was trying to find a way back, but I had no idea what I was doing. I can't fly here, the winds are...there's something wrong with them. I was completely out of my element so I followed the Cheshire Cat."
"The Cheshire Cat!" Alice laughed bitterly as she stopped tugging on one of the sail's ropes and regarded Jack as if he was the stupidest thing to have ever walked the earth. "You reckless fool! Do you think this is one of Carroll's whimsical storybooks? Do you think that the real Wonderland is made up of colorful, harmless characters that sit and lounge about having tea all day? That this is some fantastical world where you can just sing jovial songs that cure doubt, pain, confusion, and magically fixes all your problems? That mangy sociopath could've very well have been leading you to your death, Frost. And you would've followed him blindly like a bloody sheep to the slaughter!"
"Oh don't be so hard on the boy, Alice," The Cheshire Cat's voice suddenly sounding out from thin air. "It's hardly his fault he's a reckless fool."
The woman in mention immediately whipped around on her heel, Jack instantly disregarded and forgotten, and pointed her deadly glare on the mangy feline that was now reclining lazily along the ship's railing.
"And I suppose you'd have me believe that you're all sugar and cherry tarts in this situation?" Alice spat venomously. "Get out of my sight, Cat. I'll deal with you later."
The grinning feline's golden eyes seemed to harden considerably at Alice's clear dismissal - he was not one of her brain-dead followers, he did not appreciate being spoken to in such a way - but whatever sharp-toned retort festered along the surface of his twisted brain, Cheshire decided to let it go, for now. They would have their time later no doubt. Best not tug on the cobra's tail when it was already poised to strike.
"I look forward to it," He purred deeply in a tone that practically dripped with mockery before disappearing with a long swipe of his bony, gray tail.
Alice let out an annoyed huff.
"So," Jack spoke up as he finally felt collected enough to stand up again. "Can we go back to the Pole now?"
Alice watched with sullen eyes as Jack gingerly picking himself up. He kept his head down and let his still wet bangs hang in front of his eyes. Despite the annoyance she still felt towards this whole bothersome ordeal that he had caused, she pretended she didn't noticed when Jack did a swift swipe of his eyes and cheeks with his hoodie sleeve and the occasional sniffle he made as he pulled at his soaked clothing, more for the sake of his personal comfort than her own surprisingly enough. He was still clearly shaken about coming face-to-face again with the substance that took away his human life. Alice felt a twinge of sympathy for him.
As for Jack, he just focused on righting his clothing. Usually, during those very rare occasions that Jack did have a run-in with water, the liquid that clung to him froze almost immediately. Jack had to remind himself once again that he was in Wonderland (as if he could ever forget). It wouldn't have been much of a stretch to assume that the waters in Wonderland held unnatural properties just as the wind did.
"Unfortunately no," Alice replied, going back to the riggings. "Not yet. We're nowhere near a portal right now."
"Don't you have any of those marbles on you?" Jack asked, still willing to cling to hope.
"Yes, but I fail to see how much good they'll do. They can only be used to enter Wonderland, not exit it. They're useless to us."
"Oh..." He visibly deflated.
"Sorry to disappoint," Alice offered up genuinely before tugging one last time on the riggings to make sure they were truly secure. "Courage though, Frost. If we backtrack to the Vale, there's a shortcut we can take through the Teapot Canyons that will lead directly to the Red Kingdom. That's where my Looking Glass portal is. It will take us back to Santoff Claussen."
Alice's tone was flat and she spoke in her usual no-nonsense manner, but her faith and confidence in her own words was evident and it helped put Jack's mind at ease. Now that the worst seemed to be over, her presence was almost...calming to him. She knew this land inside and out, she had created it. By her side was the safest place Jack could be at the moment.
There was still an overwhelming amount of tension between them though. It seemed to be physically pushing the two spirits at opposite ends of the ship as Alice busied herself with checking the order of the vessel while Jack continued to stand around and take up space.
"I couldn't help but notice that I'm still breathing," Jack quipped lightly in an attempt to ease the air around them. "Does this mean I'm forgiven?"
"No," Alice deadpanned with her back turned as she made her way to the other side of the ship.
Jack fought back the frustration that threatened to surface. He apologized, didn't he? What more did she want from him? If he could go back and change it, he would, but he couldn't. Father Time hated Jack for some reason and was never inclined to grant the ice spirit favors.
"I did something wrong," Jack admitted again softly, causing Alice to stop at the top of the small staircase that lead into the belly of the ship. "But I'm not afraid to own up to it. I know you think I'm just some stupid pixie who can't mind his own business, but you have to at least give me that, Alice."
She said nothing in response, nor did she turn around, not even to give him lip. She just remained still until it was clear Jack was done speaking before quietly disappearing below deck.
Owning up to something he did wrong. That was something his father always told him back in his human days whenever Jack found himself knee-deep in trouble and hesitant about telling the truth, like the time he accidentally flooded the church basement because he had forgotten to make sure the cellar door had latched before a big thunderstorm. It was one of the few life lessons his old man managed to successfully teach his son before losing him to the thin ice of the village pond, and one of the few life lessons Jack was able to remember being taught.
"Always own up to your mistakes, Jackie. The only way you could make things worse, is by lying. If you're always brave enough to own up to them, then you're always worthy enough to be forgiven."
~O~
The hour following the "great reveal" had been spent in total silence. Each crew member of the ship kept to themselves and occupied their own individual slice of deck.
Alice seemed restless. From all the way at the nose of the ship where Jack had taken up residence, he could hear the sharp tapping of Alice's boots against the deck every thirty seconds as she moved about doing what she felt she needed to do, whatever the heck that was. Jack only looked back to watch her a few times but from what he could tell it didn't seem like she was doing anything of great importance, just mumbling on her breath and re-checking the order of the ship for what had to be the seventh, unnecessary time. He suspected the pointless routine was done less for security and peace of mind, and more for something to keep herself busy.
Jack didn't even bother looking in on the mutant turtle-steer from earlier. Their captain had been standing in the same spot behind the wheel of the ship, humming softly to himself and staring off into space, ever since Alice dismissed him an hour ago. Jack didn't know what he would even say to the steer if he did approach him. The Mock Turtle wasn't a book character he was all that familiar with, not like he was with the Mad Hatter or the Cheshire Cat. So he stayed where he was; sitting at the very front of the ship with his legs hanging limply over the railing, swaying ever so slightly as he stared off into icy terrain with his staff clutched tightly in his hands, too afraid to let go of the aged wood just in case he took another unexpected tumble back into the dark waters below.
Baby Tooth had managed to finally find her way back to him. When she flew down from above the crow's nest with tearful, mismatched eyes and a blinding smile, Jack felt a pang of immense guilt rip through his chest. Because of all the previous commotion, Jack's almost second drowning and his confrontation with Alice, the little fairy and her whereabouts had completely slipped his mind. He couldn't bring himself to imagine what could've happened to her all alone and not have him realize it until it was too late. It reminded him of what happened two years ago, on Easter Sunday, when Jack allowed himself to fall prey to Pitch's machinations, resulting in Baby Tooth's capture. It was a dark place in his mind, a very dark place he wasn't too keen on remembering in-depth, especially with the likes of Alice Liddell pacing a hole in the deck floor barely ten feet away. She looked like the type who would psychoanalyze his sudden darkened mood and probably be a hundred percent correct on every point. Jack couldn't handle having all of his past demons thrown in his face, not all in one day.
Ever perceptive, Alice must've noticed this and decided to drop the matter of his invasion of her privacy completely - MiM knows why. She had long-since retrieved the offending newspaper articles from the deck floor and carelessly tossed them over the side of the ship without a single qualm, or second glance.
There was no doubt that, despite her disposal of the evidence, Jack still wasn't any closer to forgiveness for his crime. Although, the more he thought about it, the more he begun to suspect that Alice was angry at him for another reason.
His overall presence in her Wonderland.
True, it wasn't Jack's fault he was there, something Alice seemed to already be aware of, but that apparently didn't stop her from still hating him for it. Wrongful blame, yes, but until she found the true culprit responsible for bringing the ice spirit to Wonderland without permission, Jack wasn't going to be let off the hook anytime soon.
It made sense though, that she was more upset about his frolicking through Wonderland than his snooping at Jamie's house. Even though Wonderland was no longer just a figment of Alice's unlimited imagination, everyone and everything in it had, at one time or another, been a small piece of Alice's actual mind. Internet stalking obviously paled in comparison to Jack literally invading Alice's head. As unintentional as it was, he had succeeded in invading Alice's privacy on one of the most intimate levels there possibly was. The only way he could ever top that was to accidentally walk in on her changing or something.
Now that would definitely earn him a knife through the heart.
"Have I truly been that horrid?"
Startled out of his thoughts, Jack whipped around the best he could without losing his balance at the sudden sound of Alice's voice. So deep in his own little world, the Winter spirit hadn't even noticed that the dark-haired woman had ceased her insistent pacing and crossed over to his side of the ship. She stood a decent distance away from where he sat with her arms crossed underneath her chest and a pensive look on her face. "Come again?"
"What did you think I was going to do?" Her voice was uncharacteristically soft and held a genuine hint of curiosity.
Confused, Jack glanced briefly at Baby Tooth, who hadn't moved from his shoulder since they reunited, before blinking back at Alice, prompting her with his lack of response to clarify what exactly it was she was asking him.
"Back when we first boarded the ship, you looked genuinely frightened of me. You looked at me as if I was your undertaker, marking the way to your grave," Alice explained while one of her hands came up to idly finger her silver Omega pendant. Jack watched as the colorful lighting of the night sky reflected off its shining surface. "I can honestly say I was a little shocked to see such an expression directed towards me."
"Well," Jack drawled slowly as he maneuvered his legs back over the railing so he could properly face Alice. "You had just slapped me across the face at the time, which still kind of hurts by the way-"
"But it's more than that, isn't it?" Alice interjected. "You were truly afraid of me, weren't you? Afraid I was going to do something awful to you."
It was more of a statement than a question. A true statement that Jack found himself nodding his head to before he could even think about lying.
Alice blinked at him for a few seconds while her fingers continued to play with her pendant, seemingly processing something before her gaze fell to the floor and she slowly nodded her head as if Jack had just helped confirm something she already knew.
There was a hollow silence as Jack watched her with a sudden knowing frown. He leaned forward and dipped his head down a bit to try and catch her downcast eyes.
"It's not a very nice feeling, is it?" He asked softly, at the risk of sounding like he was addressing a child.
She looked back up at him. "No...it isn't. It isn't a nice feeling knowing that you think I'm a horrible person, that your fear wasn't entirely unwarranted."
Ironically, after stewing about it for almost half an hour, their earlier spectacle was slowing developing into a rather telling eye-opener for Alice. How much of a shrew had she been for Jack to have looked at her the way he did? She wasn't ashamed to admit that she had a poor bedside manner even on the best of days, but was she really so horrible that her mere presence incited honest fear within the ice spirit? Why did that leave such a bitter taste in her mouth?
"Hey now," Jack protested gently as he reached out a hand that was nowhere near touching her but he still hoped came off as reassuring. "I don't think you're a horrible person, Alice. Just extremely vindictive."
Honestly, he didn't.
Sure she wasn't exactly a delightful walk through a warm, sunny park, and it was next to impossible to fully get along with her, even for someone close to her like Bunny, but Alice had to be one of the most interesting and complex people Jack has ever met in his life, and Jack Frost wasn't anything if not an overgrown child constantly looking to quench his insatiable thirst for fun and adventure. He was a daredevil, even as a human. It was woven into his DNA.
Alice definitely made him work for his fixes, the hardest he's ever had to, but he found it all worth it because there was never any shortage of thrills when he was around her and he knew there were still many more surprises to come. It was all matter of being ready and willing to take them on along with the excess baggage Alice was always carrying with her.
Her green eyes flickered to the side as the air around them suddenly turned awkward. There was obviously more on Alice's mind, but she seemed to be having trouble voicing it. White teeth gingerly started working over her bottom lip in a rare display of apprehension and Jack found his eyes locked on the movement, his mind still making that annoying comparison between Alice's lip color and pink lemonade.
"May I join you?"
Bewildered, Jack looked up from the girl's pretty mouth and managed to croak out a "Sure."
The shock was still there as he scooted over a few inches to allow Alice more space to sit. He ignored the soft, indignant chirps that Baby Tooth whispered into his ear - the little fairy's mistrust of Alice still very much present - and watched as Alice sat on the ship's railing and expertly spun herself around so her legs hung over the side like Jack's before crossing one over the other with much more confidence than Jack when he first tentatively approached the railing and sat down.
Baby Tooth watched with distaste as the dark-haired woman sat down next to Jack. In her tiny head, Baby Tooth called Alice the "mean girl", because that's what she was. Mean. She was nothing but mean and hurtful towards Jack, even when her friend tried his very best to get along with her. She didn't care about him. In fact, if Baby Tooth hadn't told her that Jack couldn't swim, the hateful harpy would've just let him be eaten by sea monsters!
"It's her ship, Baby T," Jack said, giving the little fairy a hopeless shrug when he noticed the pointed glare she was sending him. "She can sit here if she wants."
Baby Tooth only gave the ice spirit an unimpressed frown before crossing her tiny arms. She let out a highly annoyed chirp in response as she jumped off his shoulder and stomped her way back into the sanctuary of Jack's hoodie pocket, not believing how stupid her friend was being right now. It was typical male behavior. Jack had to be the smartest person she knew besides Mother Tooth, but the moment some pretty girl in a pretty blue dress comes around, blinking her pretty green eyes at him, he's suddenly dumber than a bucket of cavity infested molars!
"It's the Mock Turtle's," Alice corrected him as she watched the fairy throw her tantrum with an amused smirk, her foot doing that thing again where it bounces to some unheard tune.
"Is there really a difference?" Jack asked with a huff. "I mean, he's your creation, so everything he owns, you own."
"I suppose you could look at it like that," Alice replied with another smirk.
Instantly, Jack remembered the last time things were like this between him and Alice; back in Burgess, a lifetime ago it seemed, just after Jack discovered Alice's aversion to the smell of burnt meat and their (somewhat) casual stroll to Jamie's house.
Their fighting was fun, most of the time, but he found he liked this better. This comfortable silence between them.
Alice sat almost rigidly still other than the rhythmic bouncing of her foot while Jack used his expert balance to pull his legs up and sit criss-crossed along the railing of the ship. Both spirits looked out over the dark water as the smoking, crescent moon overhead bathed them in moonlight and soft hues of green and blue from the northern lights that drifted from the tip of the moon's cigarette. Jack watched with slightly distrustful eyes as slow waves crashed against the bottom of the ship, surprisingly relaxed but also ready to bolt the second the waves hit too high. Jack was finally dry and he had no intentions of getting wet again for at least, another century.
Occasionally Alice would idly watch as the HMS Gryphon mundanely floated past a particularly impressive iceberg, but for the most part, she found herself casting long, curious side glances in her companion's direction.
She knew the incident made Jack recall his death, and for whatever reason, she felt that there was more that she could've been done to avoid it all, to avoid having Jack relive such a tragic event, but then again, Frost was the clumsy one who didn't look where he was going, not Alice. He should've minded his footing better.
Still though, she found it difficult to imagine what it must've felt like. To die.
Alice liked to fancy herself a rather experienced person in the many ways of a hard life, what with losing her entire family in a house fire caused by an obsessive psychopath, her less than ideal childhood and upbringing past the age of seven, her luxurious ten-year stay in Rutledge Asylum, living as a scraggly maid in the piss poor side of Victorian London, and all the while being doggedly labelled as a mad loon by every "wholesome" East End patron that walked past her on the street, but she didn't know what it felt like to die.
True, there were many times Alice wished she were dead, but nothing obviously came of it.
As ridiculous as it might sound though, Alice felt at a bit of a disadvantage because of that. Despite all the hardships in her life, that was one horrific experience Frost would always have over her, and for some reason, that peeved her a little.
Beyond the knowledge of his drowning, Alice didn't know much about Jack Frost, or who he was before becoming a spirit. She knew he was at least two centuries older than her, he was the Spirit of Winter, and he was the Guardian of Fun. He severely lacked proper discipline, seemingly had no respect for authority, would rather goof off than take things seriously, and presumably enjoyed annoying her since he had been doing it non-stop ever since they met. But other than that, she knew nothing else. She didn't know if his name had always been Jack Frost, or if he went by something different as human. She didn't know how old he was when he became a spirit (although she pegged him for, at most, eighteen), where he had gotten his conduit staff, why Toothiana's little fairy with the mismatched eyes followed him so much, what his job as a Winter spirit entitled, how skilled he was with his powers, or anything about his birth home and family. She didn't even know the asinine things like what his favorite color was or how he liked his eggs cooked.
Again, another disadvantage he had over. And that one annoyed her even more than the first. Jack knew far more about Alice than she knew about him, which was completely unacceptable.
Granted, she couldn't care less about eggs or his favorite color (but if she were to guess, she would say blue). She wanted to know more about his death. The only problem was, how exactly does one go about asking such a thing? Would it be considered polite, or impolite conversation? Did it really matter? Frost got his chance to be nosy and inconsiderate. Where was her's?
Obviously though, a delicate and complex matter such as the one she currently faced needed to be approached with a great amount of sensitivity and finesse.
"What does death feel like?"
But then again, Alice has never been widely known to be much of either. She was also a no-nonsense person and disliked being apart of conversations that beat repetitively around the bush.
Jack let out a soft snort as he continued to stare out into the Wonderland sea. "So you heard about that, huh?"
"You're not surprised?"
"No, not really," Jack shrugged. "I might not always be upfront about it, but I've never bothered to hide my past."
"Are you implying that I did?"
"Nope," Jack said with a slowly forming smirk. "Something tells me if I would've just asked, you would've told me. You would've probably snapped and insulted me first, but I think you'd still answer. If only I had it in me to just ask. Guess it's true what they say about hindsight, huh?"
"Apparently so," Alice mused, looking out over the dark sea, bouncing her foot again. "I understand that my question might be a little too personal, excuse me if it was, but I felt I needed to ask. Unlike your curiosities, I'm sure no new-age, technological thingamabob would be able to answer me that."
Jack let out a heavy, exasperated sigh. "You're just going to keep hanging that over my head, aren't you?"
Alice gave him a coy side glance and smirk, but said nothing.
"Well," He breathed as he followed Alice's distant gaze out to sea, silently promising himself that he would be totally honest in the face of Alice's question, a mild make-up for his snooping. "Believe it or not, my death hasn't been the hardest thing for me to deal with."
He laughed at the curled up, skeptical expression Alice gave him.
"Seriously, it hasn't!" He insisted mirthfully. "You'd think it would be, but it only ever really affects me when I'm near water because then the memories come back. Just as long as I don't think about it, it really doesn't bother me. I mean, yeah it really sucked to drown, really scary and painful, but I suppose on a somewhat morbid bright side, it isn't the worst way I could've died. And not to mention, if it hadn't been me, than it would've been my sister and that would've hurt a lot more because then I would've been the one left standing alone on the ice...and I don't think I would've been strong enough to face that."
Alice looked away from the sea and blinked at him. "Sister? You never said you had a sister."
"You never asked," He pointed out simply. "But yeah, I had a sister. A little sister."
"And she was with you when it happened?" There was something notably different shining in Alice's eyes now, something Jack couldn't quite identify, but had a small inkling of what might be causing it.
He nodded.
"How did it happen?"
Jack couldn't help but chuckle (despite the depressing topic of the conversation) at the way Alice leaned in over so slightly, impatiently waiting for his answer, clearly hooked into his story. "Oh, now look who's being the busybody," He teased lightly, earning himself a scowl from the girl. "It's not much of a riveting tale if that's what you're hoping for. It was late in a lingering Winter, I was eighteen, my sister was ten. She wanted to go ice skating and I promised I'd take her, but I made a stupid mistake. I didn't check the thickness of the ice good enough because it was still really cold out, and I didn't think...it broke and I fell in."
There was a thick silence as Alice waited for Jack to continue, immediately knowing there was more depth to his story than what he was tenuously giving her, but he didn't say anything else. He just avoided her gaze and sheepishly shrugged his shoulders as if to say, 'And that's all she wrote.'
Alice's brow furrowed when she realized that was all he was going to give her willingly.
Unacceptable.
Jack nearly jumped out of his skin when Alice suddenly slid closer to him with determined eyes, so close that her sweet scent completely invaded his senses. Instinctively, he moved to slide away and gain back their earlier distance, but a firm hand on his lower thigh kept him frozen to his spot. His blue eyes flickered down to where Alice was touching him and suppressed a small shudder when an unexpected spark of proverbial electricity ripped through him and a surge of warmth erupted along the cool skin trapped underneath Alice's palm.
She was touching him. For the first time, Alice was touching him. During the rare moments of very brief contact between them these past few days, they were either completely accidental, or Jack had initiated them. Never had Alice been the one to reach out and touch him.
Alice didn't seem to be as marveled by the moment as he was. She was still staring at him determinedly with narrow eyes like she was trying to dissect his brain.
"There's obviously more to it than that," She insisted. "You said if it hadn't been you, than it would've been your sister who fell through the ice. What did you mean by that?"
"Nothing," He answered with a hard swallow because of Alice's sudden proximity. She was so close that he could see every green shade and hue that made up her stunning eyes. Overwhelmed, Jack had to lean back a bit. "The ice cracked underneath her skates first, but I was the one that fell in. If I hadn't moved her than she would've been the one who drowned."
"You took her place," She deduced, immediately picking up on what he was leaving out.
"Of course I did," He said before vehemently adding, "And I'd do it again too, a hundred times over. Just as long as she's alive and safe."
Alice stared at him for a long time before giving a curt nod of understanding. Without a word and a distant look in her eyes, she removed her hand from his leg and slid back to her original spot on the railing, mindlessly going back to staring off at the horizon.
"It's an older sibling thing. I'm sure your sister would've done the same for you. Elizabeth, right?"
Whoa, wait a minute. Where did this sudden death wish come from?
Jack immediately flinched and clutched his staff tightly in his hands when Alice's head whipped back to the side and her eyes turned from blank and distant, to sharp and venomous in less than a second. Her deadly stare locked on to his and Jack mentally prepared himself to be mercilessly shoved off ship's railing and back into the water where he would be easy prey for whatever skeletal monstrosities lurked underneath the surface.
Strangely enough though, just when Jack thought he had finally pushed Alice over the edge by mentioning her older sister, which in his defense he had no idea was a such a sore, taboo conversational topic, the dark-haired woman's anger dissolved and her murderous expression softened.
"Lizzie," She whispered, her eyes glossing over for a brief second before she blinked again and they returned to normal. "We called her Lizzie."
"Sorry," Jack apologized benignly. "I should've realized-"
"It's fine," Alice said curtly. "It was a long time ago."
Things became thickly silent between them again, but Jack had a feeling that for once, this was leading towards something good.
"When I told the others about my death, things were a little awkward for a while," Jack spoke up, hoping to keep the conversation going because he suddenly felt it was necessary. "None of them had died before becoming a spirit, so I really don't think any of them knew how to handle it. They've all dealt with death and loss before, but not in this sense. I came back from death, which was something new, even for them."
"They kept trying to make it better for some reason, which was really annoying. I couldn't get mad at them though. They just didn't- couldn't understand," He explained before quickly adding an after-thought. "Except maybe Sandy, but he's never really talked to anybody about what Pitch did to him and everybody's a little hesitant about asking since it happened such a short while ago."
"It's understandable. They're just trying to help," Alice sighed. "Bunny sometimes does that too - attempt to fix something that's broken beyond repair."
"I know they are, but it's still annoying," Jack replied with a small huff. "Yeah okay, I died or whatever, but I'm still alive though. I lived three hundred years after my death and only recently have I remembered anything. It kind of just feels like a really, really bad nightmare, which I suppose is why I find it easy to forget about it most of the time. The only time it ever feels real is when I'm submerged, you know?"
"Possibly," She said almost wistfully. "I suppose after all these years, I could say the same about the fire. Even when I was human, sometimes it all just seemed so unreal, that it was just a nightmare that I was having trouble waking up from. My twisted delusions of Wonderland certainly didn't do anything to help along my much needed reality check."
Jack only nodded silently. He understood the nightmare part, but not the delusions part.
"You still haven't answered my original question though," Alice reminded him softly. "What did it feel like to die?"
"Cold and dark," He replied. "It was the last time I ever felt humanly cold."
"Do you miss it?"
"Being cold?"
"No you daft fool, being human. Do you miss being human?"
He shrugged his shoulders before making a non-committal noise in his throat. "Not really I guess. I like my life where it is now. It's much more fun being the Spirit of Winter and a guardian, but I do miss my family though."
Alice nodded before looking down at the water below them while her hands fiddled with the ends of her white apron.
"Do you miss being human?" He asked tentatively.
"No," She replied, not taking her eyes off the water. "I had very little in my human life. No loving family, or caring friends. I worked as a maid in the orphanage I was staying at. It was honest work, but grueling and thankless. The children were morbid and damaged, just like me. I was surrounded by seedy sailors, corrupt business men, dried-up prostitutes, and sleazy pimps. I was still mad as a Hatter with no hope for a better future and my trusted new doctor turned out to be-"
Alice froze in mid-sentence as something clicked deep within her head.
"Turned out to be what?" Jack asked, looking at her curiously. "What's wrong?"
Alice's eyes flickered towards Jack and she regarded him with a piercing, unreadable stare.
"What's wrong?" Jack asked again, slowly becoming nervous as he watched the girl next to him. "Did I do something again?"
Alice didn't reply.
Inside her suddenly racing mind, Alice briefly wondered if Jack knew about Dr. Bumby, but then quickly deduced that he couldn't know about Bumby. It would've been impossible. The articles he found on Jamie's computer were written only a short time after the night of the fire, long before Alice became one of Bumby's patients.
Dr. Bumby had been a psychotic, despicable, hollow shell of a human being, but even Alice couldn't deny that he had been a very brilliant man. He covered his tracks meticulously well when it came to his criminal activities. His only mistake was leaving Alice as a loose end instead of killing her when he had the chance.
The truth about Angus Bumby's true nature and his heinous crimes died along with the Good Doctor and the only person in London able enough to validate all his crimes had seemingly disappeared into thin air seconds after Bumby's death.
Jack was now on the same page as all the other guardians, just like he wanted. They all still believed the fire had been an accident. The only person who knew otherwise was Bunny, but even then Alice never revealed to the pooka Bumby's true motive behind starting the fire. She told him it must've been a schooling dispute between her father and Bumby, who had been a student at Oxford University at the time.
"Nothing," She finally answered stoically. "Nothing's wrong."
"You sure?" Jack asked, obviously not believing her. He felt the urge to reach out and lay an anchoring hand on her shoulder like he would for Tooth or Jamie or any of his friends, but decided against it at the last second because it was Alice. "You kinda just drifted away on me for a second there."
"I'm alright," Alice insisted as she came back to the present with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I just distracted myself with something."
"Oh, okay." He still didn't believe her, but he knew it probably wasn't wise to push her further than he already had today.
"Back to what I was saying though," Alice backtracked. "No, I do not miss being human. The only good thing in my life that still remained after the fire was Bunny and once I reunited with him after becoming a spirit, everything else fading into the background. We were together again and nothing else mattered."
Jack regarded his companion softly as he gnawed briefly on his bottom lip in thought, trying to decide whether or not it would be foolhardy of him to bring up the subject of Bunny so soon after the pooka's fight with Alice.
There was still something definitely strained between them, but surprisingly it was nothing awkward, or altogether unbearable. It was almost light in a sense. Freeing and boundless. All the cards were now on the table. She knew his secret and he knew hers, or at least, one of hers. The only thing left to do now was find a way to address them.
"Do you ever feel angry towards Bunny? You know, for not coming for you when you were stuck in that asylum, or living as an orphan in London?"
He only risked asking her such a personal question because he thought maybe that was something they could both relate to. Sometimes, on his worst days, Jack couldn't help but feel bitter and upset towards the other guardians for ignoring him for three hundred years, having parties and interacting with others while he was left alone to suffer through his isolated existence alone, wondering constantly what horrible thing he must have done, but couldn't remember doing, in order to end up as he did. Sure they did everything they could to make up for their unintentional neglect once they accepted him into their bizarre family, but sometimes, he just couldn't help it. Yes, it was a bit petty. The other guardians loved him deeply, he knew that, but again, he couldn't help it sometimes and he just wanted to know if it was possible someone else felt like that too. Someone who possibly knew what it felt like to live through three hundred years of neglect and mistreatment without actually living for three hundred years. Someone who suffered vaguely through the same things he did but on a more malicious level and in a much shorter frame of time.
"Snooping again, Frost?"
Jack shrugged his shoulder. "Just a bit of a quid pro quo, Clarice."
She blinked at him. "Who?"
"Nevermind," Jack chuckled and shook his head at himself. "Just answer the question please."
"I did at first," Alice replied after eyeing him suspiciously for a few seconds. "Thinking back on it now, I feel a little remorseful for my unfair assumptions, but I was still so very bitter back then. Soon after my memories of Bunny begun to resurface, I became angry at him for not being there when I truly needed him. At one point, I had gotten so angry, I started to reject the idea of going to find him because I thought, if he supposedly cared for me so much, why wasn't he there to save me?"
"But..." Jack drawled slowly, promoting her to continue when she stopped.
"But...eventually I realized that my anger was severely misplaced. The guardians aren't omniscient beings. They can't be everywhere at once. They have their limits, just like humans. I have no doubt now that Bunny did everything in his power to help me, to stay by my side and watch over me, but through misfortune and circumstances that he could not control, he lost track of me. It was not his fault, just like the fire that killed my family wasn't mine.
It's more than just Bunny losing me though," Alice reluctantly admitted, not entirely sure why she was telling Frost all of this. "I felt angry because he wasn't there to "save" me, and it took me a long time to realize that he never saved me - not because he didn't want to - but because he wasn't suppose to. I needed someone to save me, but my savior could only be me, not Bunny, or anybody else for that matter. I needed to be my own hero, otherwise nothing would've ever gotten better for me. If someone else had swooped in like a bloody knight in shining armor, it wouldn't have done a single lick of good. I would've been deprived of my self-realization and just ended up repeating everything again, recycling through all my tainted thoughts and ill-advised decisions, remaining forever blind to the suffering of others until something eventually killed me, whether it be old age, or a disgruntled sailor with a very large knife."
Jack's eyes widened at the "sailor with a large knife" bit, wondering just what kind of insane life Alice used to lead as a human, but he didn't dare interrupt her, not yet. She was being open with him and Jack didn't want to risk ruining that.
"It took me a few decades to realize that everything, everything in my life turned out actually as it was supposed to. Everything happened for a reason, it all lead up to-"
"-becoming a guardian?" Jack suggested hopefully, and somewhat cheekily.
"-to becoming a whole person again," She finished before chiding him with the wave of her finger. "Don't interrupt me."
"Sorry."
"I don't blame Bunny anymore. I haven't for a very long time because I realized that the only person who could save me, is myself - as cliché as that might sound. I pulled myself up from the darkness, pieced back together what shattered fragments remained of my sanity, and rebuilt myself. Admittedly yes, the Man in the Moon gave me some vital tools to help me along, but then again, so did Bunny. Bunny served as a reminder to me, a reminder of all the good things that happened in my childhood and none of the bad ones. He also served, I would like to think, as a kind of reward."
"A reward for what?"
"Surviving it all."
Jack saw Alice in a completely new light then, even more so when they were in Burgess. Somehow, Alice managed to achieve the sense of deep wisdom that Jack has only over seen spirits like North and the Sandman display, and she had attained it through pure experience alone, not age.
He looked about their surroundings again. The sea around them was now completely calm and still, allowing its smooth surface to become a perfect mirror for the starry sky above them. The only movement along the water was the gentle ripples caused by their ship as it continued its voyage back to the Vale of Tears.
The moonlight still shined down on them, bathing everything in a soft glow. No doubt it was making Jack's messy white hair shine silver, just like it did in Antarctica where he used to spend many nights staring up at the real world moon, wondering what his purpose on Earth was.
Alice's hair also had a silver sheen to it, but hers was much more subtle than his and it didn't threaten to momentarily blind anyone unlucky enough to glance in her direction. The dark atmosphere of the night also added in something of its own by making her dark strands appear ink black instead of dark brown.
Her hands were no longer in her lap. They rested along the rim of the ship on either side of her legs. Her left hand laid further out from her body than her right, closer to Jack and he wondered fleetingly what would happen if he were to lay his hand on top of hers, what it would feel like, what she would do. The moonlight made her skin shine alabaster white, like a porcelain China doll.
Alice let out a heavy sigh, abruptly pulling Jack from his treacherous thoughts.
"I need to make things right with him."
"Right with who?"
"Bunny."
"I'm sure you will," Jack reassured her. "As soon as we get back, you can do it. Although, I'm not sure why you didn't do it earlier. It's not like there's a chance he won't forgive you."
"I wouldn't if I were him. My behavior towards him was absolutely boorish tonight."
"Yeah, it kinda was," Jack quipped almost cheerfully. "But then again, so was his. The kangaroo will still forgive you."
"And what makes you so sure?"
"Because you're his kid. If something like that ever happened between me and Jamie, I'd forgive him. I will always forgive him just like Bunny will always forgive you."
Yet another silence fell between them. Jack found himself stifling more than a few yawns. The moon was still in the same spot it was when he arrived in the icy section of Wonderland, making it impossible to tell how long they had been talking, but it had to be at least a few hours since he first sat down judging by the numbness in his legs. Jack could feel the edges of his eyes burning from being open so long without any rest. He was slowly running on empty.
"Do you see now?" Alice asked suddenly. "Do you understand why I've kept Wonderland locked away for so long?"
"Yeah, I'm starting to," Jack replied, rubbing his eyes before side-glancing the girl next to him. "But I still don't see why you locked yourself away along with it."
"Someone needs to keeps things in order, this place is even more dangerous otherwise. I created it so it's my responsibility to maintain its upkeep."
"That's true. It is incredibly dangerous...but still undeniably beautiful," Jack tacked on vehemently before coyly adding. "Much like its creator."
Alice's head whipped to the side to stare at the Winter spirit, certain that she had misheard his last remark, but the white-haired teen paid her no mind as he pulled himself up from the ship's rim.
"Well, I don't know about you," He said with a slightly strained voice as he stretched his arms high above his head and bent backwards to work the kinks out of his spine. "But that's enough angst and soul-searching for me today. I'm going to go catch some Z's if you don't mind."
Alice could only shake her head and watch with a blank face as Jack shuffled along the deck in search of a comfortable spot to lay down, adamantly avoiding any places that ran too close to the edges of the ship. He didn't venture below deck either. There was no way he was going to allow himself to get trapped in the belly of the ship should something happen and water begins to pour in over his head while he's sleeping.
Eventually, he settled for a spot in the center of the deck, near the main mast. The wooden floor was predictably hard and uncomfortable, but it was dry and allowed Jack to stretch out his stiff limbs, so it was good enough for now. He used a large coil of thick sailing rope as a makeshift pillow as he set his staff down within quick grabbing distance and folded his arms behind his head.
Alice remained glued to her spot for several more minutes until Jack's contagious fatigue finally begun to sink its hooks into her. After a short, internal debate, she decided a few minutes of rest couldn't hurt anything. The trek from the Vale of Tears to the Red Kingdom was a long one, and not to mention riddled with Hatter's Mad Caps. She could use the extra energy.
The spot Jack had picked out was probably the best on the ship. For different reasons, Alice didn't want to sleep below deck either.
The Winter spirit didn't move or give any indication of awareness as Alice came over and lowered herself to the floor. After double checking that there was several feet of space between them, she laid down on her side with her back turned towards Frost. Trying to get as comfortable as possible with what little was provided to her, Alice wedged one of her hands underneath her cheek to keep it from touching the dirty deck floor as her legs curled up closer to her stomach.
Alice stared off at nothing as she waited for sleep to claim her while replaying the last hour in her head repeatedly, word for word.
'Beautiful? Did he just imply that he thought I was beautiful? What a cheeky bastard.'
There was now total silence on the deck. Alice could still sense the Mock Turtle's presence by the wheel of the ship, but he had long-since stopped humming. She didn't know what he was doing now - probably staring off into space - but she was too tired to care. Just as long as he wasn't bothering her.
Everything was peaceful. Almost.
"So hey, quick question," Jack suddenly spoke up as he opened up his eyes to stare up at the stars. "Now that the truth is out in the open and everything, can I call you Pleasance?"
"Not unless you want to get smacked in the cranium with my Hobby Horse."
Jack smiled fondly at her response before closing his eyes again, willing sleep to come and claim him.
"Okay, just checking."
AN: Of course we all know he's going to call her Pleasance anyway because he's Jack Frost.
I hope this chapter came out alright. There's not a lot of actions, unfortunately, but now everything is out in the open between Jack and Alice. Well, expect for Dr. Bumby, but that shall somehow come into play later. Won't reveal how though. But now that all the unpleasantries are behind our favorite bickering duo, the Ice Tea material should really start showing up. So yay for whoever's looking forward to that.
Okay, I've been staring at this material (reading it over, rewriting, editing) for several days now, so I would not be surprised if I missed a lot of errors. If you see one, let me know in a review and I'll fix it! Thanks!
~Scorpiofreak~