Returning to the Workshop wasn't quite as bad this time, knowing that they could leave again, that they weren't tied down to the wards. Jack was still easily startled, and he wasn't quite able to fully let go of the fact that they didn't need the wards anymore. But he waved at the Guardians when he saw them (though he only saw North and Toothiana, loudly discussing a new toy prototype – a giant inflatable toothbrush – which an adoring yeti had made for a certain Guardian). They waved back somewhat absently.

Jack felt a sort of wonder as he and Pitch went back up to Pitch's room. As Pitch lay down on his bed, blinking at Jack with a sleepy affection, Jack stared down at him and then reached out with his fingers to stroke his hair. Pitch didn't say anything, simply closed his eyes and sank into sleep almost immediately. Jack wondered just how tired Pitch was, seeing that. Jack hadn't even checked to see how many of the rooms at Kostroma had been put back in order again.

They'd gotten distracted.

Jack went looking for Mora. Flying through the wind on his own had reminded him of how desperately he needed to share the sky with her again.

He found her up by Sandy's giant, golden cloud. Sandy was snoring softly, but Jack waved at him anyway, and beckoned Mora towards him.

'Come on,' he whispered. 'Hop on the winds with me.'

Mora opened her mouth to shriek in excitement, pawing the air with her hooves, and Jack held up his hands and shook his head.

'Not yet, quietly, let's not wake up the guy who brought you back to life, okay?'

Mora rushed towards him, circling him enthusiastically before dashing off into the sky. She didn't even wait for him.

Jack raced after her, calling the wind to him, and she whinnied and screeched her excitement once they were a fair distance from Sandy's cloud. The wind carried her voice away from her. She turned to look at him constantly, tail flashing back and forth, eyes glowing brightly. He laughed at her happiness. There was a giddiness to her that he hadn't seen in so long, too long.

He bumped her lightly with his staff as he finally overtook her, and watched as she galloped towards him. Mora was fast, but Jack had been doing this almost all his life, and he knew the winds so well he sometimes felt like he couldn't tell where he stopped and they began.

'Come on, then!' he shouted at her, and she put on a burst of extra speed.

They raced each other through the winds, and then Mora made a huffy sound of mischief and ducked down beneath the canopy of a forest. Jack followed, curious, only to see Mora waiting for him on the ground, her body arched with playfulness.

'What is it?' Jack said, and Mora watched him, a seriousness moving into the tension of her mouth.

She folded her front legs, and then her back, and lowered herself to the ground. She tossed her head towards her back.

Jack's eyes widened.

'For real? Like, really? Now? You don't mind?'

Mora made a whuffling noise of exasperation.

It was hard arguing with that.

Jack slid onto her back, surprised at the warmth of her. Fear spiked within him, but unattached to anything in particular, it became background noise. He held onto her mane with one hand, and carried his staff with the other.

Mora stood up and Jack rode the motion uncertainly. When she hopped into the air, his legs tightened around her, and his fingers clenched around her mane. He held his staff up for balance, and Mora sailed gently upwards.

He shifted his seat until he felt more comfortable, and then relaxed his legs, feeling the way her muscles shifted beneath her skin. For all that she was made out of sand, she had a body structure; the sand formed muscles, bone, and Jack could read it all as she stepped out into the sky, prancing a little in her excitement.

'Wow,' Jack breathed. 'Wow, this is awesome.'

It felt strange to give his trust over to her. To not simply be carried on the winds alone. He could feel the way she stepped into different breezes. And when he called an assortment of winds to her, he was fascinated at how she chose which ones she wanted to ride. She picked different winds to him, communicated with the air differently.

The first time she put some speed into her step, he nearly slid off, but after that, after years of clumsily learning the winds and take-offs and dismounts himself, he found it far easier than he thought it would. Keeping his seat, holding his staff, making sure that he didn't fall...soon they were things he didn't have to consciously think about.

'Okay, okay, I think you can step it up a bit.'

Mora looked behind him, pricking her ears as if to say, Are you sure?

She stepped out into a speedy, rough gallop, jerked sideways and Jack laughed as he slid off completely, letting the wind catch him as he fell. She whickered at him in amusement and he raced to catch up with her. They kept pace for a little bit, and then Jack grinned.

'Well that just means we get to try it again.'

Mora huffed an agreement at him, then shot away. Jack followed her, letting snow and ice trail out behind him. The weather was cooling down, and he was always happy to speed up that process, and give the seasons a bit of a shake.

When he returned, Pitch was still asleep. Jack started to go to his own room and then thought the better of it, sneaking back into Pitch's. Mora joined him and went to her space by the armchair. The spirals that Jack had playfully sketched across her body were still melting, and she glistened with black sand and frost particles.

Jack put his staff up against the wall alongside Pitch's axe, sat on the edge of Pitch's bed, and then pulled his legs up. He looked at the golden snowflake resting on the chest of drawers.

He got off the bed and picked it up, and then floated onto the base of Pitch's bed again. He placed the snowflake down beside him, and then placed his hand over one of Pitch's ankles, where it was tucked up beneath a dark grey blanket.

Beneath the fears that the war had brought him; were older, ancient fears. They were carved into his heart, they swam in the baseline of his thoughts. The more he enjoyed himself with Pitch, the more time they had together and it was...reassuring and good, the more he didn't know how to stop fearing being abandoned, the aloneness of being without someone. It struck at the core of him. Made him reluctant to leave Pitch's room, even as Pitch slept quietly.

Jack curled up at the foot of the bed and looked at the golden snowflake, sombre. He didn't know if he even wanted the good dreams. He knew it didn't make sense. Pitch helped allay some of his fears, but he couldn't allay all of them.

There would always be a part of him that would remember the loneliness, a part of him that would remember the madness that encroached on him when he wandered through his own purgatory, uncertain of what he'd done to deserve being unseen by everyone. Eventually he'd decided that the problem must have simply been him.

All the fun in the world couldn't take that truth away from him. And now it lay deep within his heart.

'Jack,' Pitch said quietly, and Jack's eyes flew open. 'Your fears aren't like coffee, they don't need to percolate.'

'You aren't supposed to be awake,' Jack said, and Pitch shifted in the bed, moving aside and patting the space he'd made next to himself. Jack took the golden snowflake and crawled up alongside him, abashed. 'I know this is creepy.'

'Jack, we both think eavesdropping is perfectly normal and there's a part of me that will always prefer to hide in the shadows and creep up on people from behind. Creepy is something we both do.'

Pitch sounded exhausted.

'You'll always be afraid of these things,' Pitch said, settling a heavy arm around Jack's arm and reaching around to grasp Jack's hand where it held the snowflake he'd brought up with him. Pitch squeezed Jack's hand around the snowflake, and Jack's eyes flew open.

'No,' Jack said, 'I'm not tired.'

'Sandy's not going to hurt you, and the dreams won't take away your instincts or your fears.'

'I'm...' Jack didn't finish the sentence. Pitch already knew exactly what Jack was feeling.

'Oh, Jack,' Pitch sighed, squeezing Jack's hand around the snowflake once more. The snowflake suddenly heated up, and Jack knew it had been activated. 'You'll always be a little more afraid of having good dreams than having nightmares.'

'That sounds like...one of the stupidest things I've ever heard,' Jack said, and Pitch yawned behind him. Pitch stroked his hand down Jack's arm, and then pulled him closer with a lazy sureness that made Jack feel wanted.

'It's not stupid at all. What person would feel comfortable having good dreams, having lived so much of their lives in a nightmare?'

Jack stared ahead, and then startled when he saw a thin stream of dreamsand coil into the room and wait for him. Jack pushed himself up to check that Mora was okay, and Pitch dragged him back down again.

'She sleeps on his sand-cloud, she no longer fears the dreamsand. Remember, she can feed on your good dreams now too,' Pitch said, and Jack squeezed his eyes shut.

'Do you fear good dreams too?' Jack said, and Pitch kissed the scar at the back of his neck. Jack tensed, and Pitch murmured a low, soothing sound.

'We're both somewhat broken,' Pitch whispered. 'Now let yourself find sleep. I'll be right here, when you wake up.'

Jack kept his eyes closed, relaxed slowly. He sought for the blackness of sleep with an uncertain reluctance. But with Pitch's body behind him, and his arm around him, he stepped into the abyss.

Jack woke up feeling surprisingly well-rested, but he couldn't remember any good dreams at all. He blinked himself awake properly, grimaced when he saw Gwyn in the room, carefully penning a note with a fountain pen.

'Kings don't knock, huh?'

Gwyn startled and fumbled the fountain pen. He turned to Jack and frowned.

'I didn't mean to wake you. This isn't urgent.'

'I'm awake now.'

'Actually, I need to speak with Pitch,' Gwyn said, and Pitch pushed himself upright with the alertness of someone who had been awake for a while.

'Ah,' Gwyn said, in response to that. He indicated the armchair. 'May I sit?'

Pitch nodded, and Jack watched as Gwyn sat down awkwardly, turning the fountain pen in his hands. He stared at it, and then came to his decision quickly.

'I owe you a debt of gratitude,' Gwyn said to Pitch, 'for all that you have done in working against the Unseelie Court when it was corrupted, and – of course – for teaching me the very golden light that saw to the defeat of the Nightmare King. Without it, this world would be very different, as you know.'

'I do,' Pitch said.

'Fae take their debts very seriously, and I do not like to be indebted to others. So I have come to ask you if there is anything you would like? Any boon I can grant you? I have...wealth, land, a great deal more.'

Pitch took a deep, long breath. He pursed his lips, considering.

'I have wealth,' Pitch said, and Jack stared at him in shock. 'I have land. I would ask that you leave Jack and I out of your schemes in the future, but I know you, Gwyn – if you had need of us, I doubt you would honour such a favour if I asked it of you. Can I not just disavow you of the debt?'

Gwyn frowned.

'Ah, well, I had an idea...about that. It's unorthodox, but my Inner Court have agreed with me as to its soundness. I didn't think you would suggest anything that you wanted for yourself, so I have an offer to make you, which you may – of course – refuse. I would ask that you consider it seriously, however.'

Pitch waited, and Gwyn spoke into the silence.

'I would ask you to join the Seelie Court.'

Pitch inhaled sharply, and Jack's mouth opened in shock. Pitch? Seelie?

'It's very unconventional,' Gwyn said quickly, 'but the reality is that as King, I can confer on you a fae status, and while you would not receive all of the powers that this might entail – not being fae – you would still receive increased protection in the fae world, and the Seelie Court would be obligated to protect you in the future. You and...whomever you designated as kin,' Gwyn looked over at Jack as he said that, 'could claim the Court in times of asylum, should you ever need it.'

'Would this further obligate me to you?' Pitch said, and Gwyn shook his head.

'No.'

'Would it obligate me towards the Court?'

'No,' Gwyn said. 'You know that the Seelie are not obligated to fight alongside one another or even to agree with one another. And you know that none of them were obligated even in the war against the Unseelie Court.'

'Is it permanent?' Pitch said, and Gwyn shook his head.

'If you wish to step away from the Court and its protection, this could be easily done.'

'Hey,' Jack said, 'what about me? I like...helped you defeat the Nightmare King and stuff.'

Gwyn chuckled, and Jack thought about feeling embarrassed at feeling so forward, and then decided against it.

'Yes, I have squared our debt. You have a way of calling me for a year and a day. I did not offer that lightly either.'

Jack stared at him, and then fumbled for the piece of blue metal in his pocket. He knew it was a big deal, but he hadn't known it was that big of a deal.

'Also you climbed that mountain with me,' Jack said, and Gwyn turned the fountain pen in his grip. There was a woody brown ink on his fingers where some of it had spilled when he fumbled it.

'And I shall help you build your home, when you are ready.'

'I don't want to get it wrong though,' Jack said, turning back to Gwyn, and Gwyn shrugged.

'There is no getting it wrong.'

'Then you obviously didn't see where I used to live,' Jack said drily, knowing full well that Gwyn had, and Pitch hummed a sound of agreement. Jack flushed, embarrassed, and Pitch laughed a few seconds later.

'I'm going to need some time to think about this,' Pitch said. 'And check and recheck everything in triplicate.'

'Of course,' Gwyn said, seeming surprisingly easy with the idea of Pitch's caution.

'I do...I can see that this is a valuable boon you have offered,' Pitch added carefully, and Gwyn offered a smile that was almost disarmingly shy. It was similar to the smile Gwyn had made when Jack had finally agreed to spar with him. It reminded Jack of those rare moments of connection he sometimes had with wild animals. After a few seconds, it disappeared, and Gwyn stood up, smoothing his shirt absently and then looking down at his ink-stained fingers.

'Are things getting better in the Court?' Jack asked, and Gwyn nodded after a brief hesitation.

'Already, there is increased stability in the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. It will be...a long time, cleaning this up. Many, many years. Centuries perhaps. But it is something of a relief to be moving in the right direction.'

Gwyn was looking outside of the window hungrily, as though the walls themselves were an anathema. Jack could readily believe it. He already knew that Gwyn didn't like the Workshop.

Gwyn looked back at Jack and Pitch and raised his hand in a silent farewell, and disappeared into light.

Jack slid off the bed and took his crooked staff where it was resting against the wall.

'What are you gonna say?' Jack said. He smiled at Pitch, who was looking at his hands, a furrow of confusion on his forehead. Pitch looked...unhappy. 'Hey, what's...going on? Are you worried about the one who eats double-crossings in his cereal for breakfast?'

Pitch shook his head and then looked up, frowning.

'Because you can take him,' Jack said, and Pitch laughed a small, disbelieving sound.

'Jack, it's not that.'

'Then what?' Jack said, realising that he couldn't joke this away. He walked over to Pitch and looked down at him, and then reached out and touched the furrows in his brow. 'What is it?'

'Me? The Seelie Court? Can you think of two less compatible-'

'Oh,' Jack said, realising. 'Oh, alright. Because you still think you're like the worst, and because yeah, the Court totally isn't ruled by one of the worst ever.'

Pitch laughed under his breath, and then his face fell to stillness one more.

'Some seriousness, if you please,' Pitch said, and Jack shook his head.

'No, you just want to psych yourself out because you don't think you deserve this. You're not like us, you're not a Guardian like us, and you deserve to belong somewhere, even if you never do anything more than leech them for some extra status. Gwyn was right to offer you that, even if you eventually decide no. You...even when you didn't want to, even from the very beginning when I was in the lair and injured by the Nain Rouge and I could tell you really didn't want to...you still helped. You put all of that ick aside, and chose to help. And then you did it more. And then you kept doing it. Do you know how many times you've saved my life? Indirectly and directly? I lost count.'

Jack smiled at Mora, who was still sleeping, who – after all that – was still sleeping.

'Man, does he want to be your friend though,' Jack said. 'What did you guys do together when you used to train all the time? Make friendship bracelets?'

Pitch laughed.

'The dreams helped you then,' Pitch said, and Jack's eyes widened.

'I don't remember any good dreams,' Jack said, and Pitch sighed, offered a weak smile to Jack.

'Your fear disappeared for about an hour. I rather regret to say I actually panicked. I'm used to you feeling a certain amount of fear, even in sleep, and it was – irrationally, I know – a reminder of the scarf, and times when I wanted you beside me but you couldn't be there.'

They exchanged a long look. It was easy to forget how damaged Pitch had been by all of this. He wore his damage with far more grace and talked about it far less often, never volunteering a great deal of personal information about himself. It was easy to see now though, in the worn lines at his eyes, in the way he still didn't look like he understood why anyone would want to offer him something like status as a way of saying thank you. There was a grief that Pitch carried with him everywhere he went, even when his face was composed and relaxed. Jack wondered if he was the same, if he carried the shadows of a loneliness that might not ever leave.

Jack walked up to him and stood between his legs, placing one of his fingers beneath Pitch's chin. He pushed and Pitch's head followed the motion, golden eyes looking up into his.

'Well, I should be all afraid again now,' Jack said, and Pitch nodded, smiling ruefully.

'You are.'

'Not of you though.'

'I know,' Pitch said.

The smile Pitch gave was filled with warmth, and Jack kissed it carefully, traced the line of it with his lips. He wanted Pitch to say yes to Gwyn, knowing that the decision could be reversed. He wished everyone could know how much Pitch had done, what he'd fought against, what he'd achieved. Almost no one ever would. And to many children, he would only be remembered as a defeated Boogeyman; a spectre of darkness who was nothing more than malice.

Not this man he was able to kiss, dark and gentle all at once.

Holy crap, Jack thought, I do love him.

Jack stopped the kiss and they stared at each other in shock for a few seconds, before Jack cleared his throat. He still didn't feel entirely comfortable saying it, even after all this time. He'd only managed to say it under duress, when trying to make a point.

'So, uh, killing some more shadows today?'

'That's the plan,' Pitch said, and Jack, nervous, laughed.

Great. Another day of almost getting possessed. I hate those stupid shadows.

Even arriving at the airplane hangar from a distance, it was huge.

Jack's mouth dropped open when he saw it. It was nothing like Kostroma, which was large and had been well-maintained. This looked like it had never been cared for. The airplane hangar itself was pocked with holes from bullets, cannonballs, and what looked like explosions. The outer walls, once a slick, glistening aluminium, now held more smoke stains and char marks than anything else. From the outer edge of the bitumen, Jack could see weeds and grass had pushed up through the tarmac. A tall tree had grown inside the hangar and pushed branches through some of the windows.

Even with all the wreckage, the place was impressive.

Jack's fear was even colder than his normal body temperature, racing through his body with the pulsing of his heart.

'This place gives me the creeps,' Jack said. 'But...why would there be shadows in there?'

Pitch didn't answer him. He was staring ahead at the hangar, looking pale. The hand not holding his axe was fisted by his side. He was taking deep, steady breaths, he looked – very much – as though he was going to be sick.

'Pitch?' Jack said quietly.

'There comes a point,' Pitch said, his voice oddly distant, 'where it doesn't matter what she says, it seems I only want to hear her voice again.'

Jack's eyes widened.

'They know that, of course,' Pitch said, raising his fisted hand to his stomach and holding it there for a few seconds. His voice lacked its usual smoothness, turning into a rasp. Pain passed over his face. Jack placed a hand on the wrist that was resting against his ribs.

'We could go back?' Jack said, and Pitch shook his head, resolute.

'Or we could go forward,' he said.

'Can you do it?' Jack said, voice shaking. 'If you want to hear her voice again...and the shadows sound like her, then how...?'

Pitch made eye contact with him, and there was something raw in his gaze. It shocked Jack into silence. Behind them, in dense forest, songbirds chirped at each other. Overhead, the clouds had parted to reveal a sun that held very little warmth. The only thing that seemed to stir in the airplane hangar itself were the branches of the tree that had grown beyond it.

Something stirred in the forest behind them, and Jack whirled around to see a large black bear move away from them.

'Why does it look like this, so run down, if the magic is supposed to keep it preserved?'

'Because the magic preserved it in the state the Nightmare King left it in. The Nightmare King was something of an engineer; the shadows needed technology and they had possessed a body with an aptitude for it. Before I was possessed, I liked...knowing how things worked. This was where weapons were tested, where machinery was made, where frustrations were vented. The Nightmare King was constantly aware of his weakening state on this planet, and the hangar was where he dealt with his bitterness.'

Pitch's steps were silent as he moved forward on the tarmac. Every step he made was cautious. And Jack floated a few paces behind him. They knew to expect traps now. Jack had no idea exactly what to expect, but he knew to expect something.

As they got closer, Jack's fear spiralled upwards. He wondered how Pitch felt.

The hangar was closed, except for a side entrance that had been blasted through with some kind of explosion. Pitch lifted his axe in both hands and peered through the door, then stepped inside into the dusty gloom.

Shafts of cool light that entered lit thick motes of dust. Jack's eyes found the machinery and his breath became shallow with a mix of amazement and fear. Giant pieces of discarded machinery. Metal and gears fitted together with glass and fibreglass. What looked like aircraft wings severed from the body of the aircraft; but there was no other signs of the aircraft he could see. Huge robots were affixed to the side of the hangar with long, plastic tubes, their glass panels where a person might sit, dark and fogged up. They were rusted and showed long signs of use, and every single one of them slightly different, as though the designs had been improved and altered each time.

Long trestle tables were covered in dull gears and fixtures, sharp jags of metal and coils of wire that spooled in loops or had been twisted together on what looked like circuit boards. Jack's eyes couldn't pick everything out, a great deal of it was hidden in darkness. He could smell motor oil and the sharpness of factory work, the kind where metal and glass dust hung in the air long after the work had been completed. It was a grey, gloomy world, only broken up by the colours of wires, and one lonely, unexpected tree pushing its way through concrete.

Pitch stopped when he saw the metal box, he called the golden light to his axe.

It made the large robots, designed to hold a person, even eerier.

Pitch looked around the room very slowly, and then he took a deep, shuddering breath.

'Uh oh,' Pitch whispered.

'Uh oh? What the hell? Uh oh?' Jack's voice had shot up into the next octave, even as he tried to keep his voice down.

'Are you any good at freezing machinery?'

Jack's heart rabbit-thumped in his chest as he stared around at all the robots hanging on the wall. Pitch's axe moved back and forth like a torch, and Jack realised the glass visors were still an opaque, murky black. Jack realised there were shadows in there. Shadows in the mechanical robot-suits.

How about we just leave now and never come back? Why aren't they attacking?

'Yeah,' Jack said, and then made a small, high-pitched noise. He would never get used to the shadows. Never. And this was...they were in those robots. Why weren't they attacking? What were they waiting for?

Pitch and Jack looked at the metal box at the same time. Jack's hands were shaking. The butterfly of light exuding from Pitch's axe trembled.

'At least we have a head start?' Jack said, but his voice held every bit of his fear. 'I hate this. I hate this more than I've hated a lot of the stupid things we've had to do.'

Pitch was silent when he reached the shiny, metal box. A long rectangle of clean metal – the only clean metal in the room and startling because of it – waiting on the floor. There was a tiny card on it and Jack flew over, holding his staff in a double-handed grip, staring up at the robots, before risking a look at what the card said:

Daddy, do you remember?

Pitch took a deep breath.

'I need to get high enough to get the light into the visors,' Pitch said, 'So you can't start freezing them until they've reached the ground. Some of them are fast, so you need to stay back.'

Pitch's words weren't reassuring at all. One look at Pitch's face showed that they weren't meant to be.

'Jack, are you listening to me?' Pitch said.

Jack nodded, but stared at the robots. He had a lot of ice now at his disposal. He had more ice than was safe. He could freeze whatever needed freezing. But first the robots had to be activated, and-

That's panic. Okay, I'm panicking. That's happening.

Pitch bent down quickly and lifted the card, and there was a tiny click in the metallic box. The lid swung open and Pitch buried his axe inside, but no shadows streamed out of the box. It was empty, only a few metal shavings in the bottom left corner.

All around them, in the hangar, metal shrieked into life.

Large, humanoid robots disengaged themselves from the wall, ripping away the rubber hosing keeping them attached. And sibilant laughter echoed – louder than Jack thought could be possible – through the PA systems wired into the robots.

A small sob from a girl, magnified so that it bounced off the walls themselves, and Jack froze. Pitch's axe paused in mid-swing.

'D-Daddy...Daddy you're hurting me!'

Jack would have dropped his staff if he'd been holding it in one hand instead of two. He whirled back to Pitch, eyes huge, but they didn't have the luxury of time, and he couldn't pull his thoughts together to speak the horror of realisation that was dawning inside of him.

The robots were fast.

Jack shot ice at them even as Pitch seemed rooted to the spot, his mouth open like he'd been punched in the face.

'PITCH!' Jack screamed, because the robot he'd frozen to a halt only a metre away from him, was streaming Nightmare Men out of the visor, and Jack couldn't make the light. He couldn't do anything except freezethe machinery. There was no way he was going to leave Pitch alone. Not with this.

It wasn't Jack's scream that snapped Pitch out of it, but the sound of Seraphina wailing, high and distraught, the sound of it echoing and bouncing off all the planes of metal, turning it into many wails that crashed together, a cacophony in Jack's ears.

Pitch didn't make a sound, but he burst into sudden, frenetic movement. Light blazed from his axe, and Pitch slammed it into the head of the first robot, cleaving it down the middle, metal shrieking and tearing with a terrible noise. Shadows extinguished under the force of it, and Pitch ripped the axe out only to leap at the robot closer to Jack.

He didn't even notice Jack. There was an awful expression on his face. A twisted up rictus of pain and fear and horror. And as soon as Pitch had dealt with the shadows closest to Jack, he ran back into the throng, ducking and weaving through the smashing of metal arms and the laughter of the Nightmare Men, the coalescing horror of the shadows.

Jack kept freezing the robots still where he could, but he was losing Pitch amongst the machinery. He could see bursts of golden light, hear the sounds of metal tearing, he would see panels of it fall to the ground, ringing out with a clang. Jack was certain Pitch couldn't take on all those robots, all those shadows himself.

But Pitch seemed to know exactly where to aim, he worked with a fervour that bordered on madness. Jack – in the end – had to hang back, panicking by an empty metal box. There was nothing he could do.

His hands shook where he held his staff, and then suddenly, amidst the sound of metal falling, amidst the almighty crashes of an unbreakable axe against the well-made robots, Pitch keened in distress.

Jack jolted, flew over. Terror was bile in the back of his throat.

He's been possessed, he's been possessed, he's been-

Pitch was leaning over a robot in the corner of the hangar, light guttering from his axe. One of his hands was over his face, nails digging in so hard that blood had started to trickle down his cheek. Nearby, other robots seized spasmodically, in the throes of having their circuits scrambled. Jack could see no shadows.

He looked around warily, approached Pitch, scared.

'Are they gone?' Jack said. 'Are you hurt?'

'I don't remember,' Pitch said, his voice broken. It wasn't an answer to Jack's questions.

Jack reached up and placed his hand over Pitch's where it was clawing into his own face. He stared around, eyes wide, still unconvinced the shadows were gone. A hot brand of blood touched his fingers, and he levered his fingers underneath Pitch's palm, trying to move his hand away. Pitch's breath was gasping out of him in short, strained shocks.

'I don't remember,' Pitch said again, and his shoulders heaved. His knees buckled. Jack followed him down to the ground and tried to keep an eye on the hangar – looking in all directions – and an eye on Pitch.

'Pitch, hey, it's me, Jack. You know, the one who doesn't want us to get possessed and...just, can you tell me if the shadows are gone, please? Please?'

The light died from Pitch's axe completely, and Pitch's chest heaved again. The movement was so violent Jack couldn't tell if it was a sob or if he was about to throw up.

'Gone,' Pitch said. 'They're gone.'

'You can sense that?'

Jack couldn't tell if Pitch was even in the room, he felt so distant. Was he talking about the shadows he'd just killed? Or was he millions of kilometres away, somewhere in the past, in space, talking about something completely different?

Jack finally managed to lever Pitch's hand away from his face and he made a small sound when he saw the divots in Pitch's skin. The blood. He placed his fingertips gently over the cuts and called the smallest amount of ice to his fingertips, freezing the wounds shut. Pitch jerked at that, and his eyes opened.

Tears clung to his eyelashes.

'I don't remember,' Pitch said again, and Jack stared at him.

He knew what the shadows were doing now. Knew that they were trying to get Pitch to remember Seraphina's last moments. And knew from that awful, awful line that Seraphina hadn't just died in the war, away from her father; that no such mercy would be granted to Pitch.

The Nightmare King had seen to her personally.

'I don't want you to remember,' Jack said. 'Not ever.'

'I don't want to remember,' Pitch's voice cracked. His chest heaved in a series of silent, shuddering sobs. He let go of the axe handle and it fell with a clank to the ground. He leaned forwards and Jack dropped his own staff as both of his hands came up to catch the weight of Pitch falling against him.

'Hey,' Jack said, voice soft. 'Okay, hey. I've got you.'

Jack wrapped an arm around Pitch's shaking body, feeling dwarfed by him, still not entirely convinced the shadows were even gone.

He wanted to throw up. He wanted to be outside in the daylight again. He wanted to be away from this horrible place, back in Kostroma. He wanted to help. He didn't know how.

There was nothing he could do against the strength and weight of this.

Pitch's shoulders had stopped moving. He was simply breathing raggedly against Jack. The fight had gone out of him, Jack wasn't surprised. He'd fought with a strength and speed that reminded him of berserkers, of those who simply lost themselves in battle.

'Two more locations,' Pitch said, his voice eerily even. He moved back from Jack, and there was a terrible stillness to his face. Pitch stood and picked up his axe. 'Two more locations left.'

'Pitch?' Jack said, and Pitch stared at him, expression empty.

Jack didn't know if Pitch would survive either of the locations. The strain it was taking on Pitch's state of mind...

'Pitch, don't...shut me out,' Jack said, softly. 'Please?'

'The shadows are gone from here,' Pitch said, and then his forehead twisted and he touched fingertips to the iced wounds at the side of his head. 'That's...a handy skill.'

'Yeah, that's great, but... I can't tell if you're trying to pull yourself together or if you're just...'

'I did all those terrible things,' Pitch said, his voice becoming almost dreamlike. 'I destroyed worlds. People. Cultures.'

'No,' Jack said, hooking onto Pitch's forearm with his staff, in the hopes that Pitch would become irritated enough to snap out of it. Pitch gazed into the middle distance and said nothing at all, even when Jack tugged. 'No! Don't do this, that was the Nightmare King and you know it!'

'This body,' Pitch said. 'These hands.'

'You are not the Nightmare King! You know how I know? Because firstly I killed the Nightmare King, me and Gwyn, we did that. And secondly, you have never, ever, ever – even when you think you're the worst thing on the planet – ever treated me the way that he did when I encountered him.'

Pitch closed his eyes slowly, and a tear traced its way over the outer edge of his cheekbone.

'It doesn't hurt as much that way,' Pitch said. 'It doesn't hurt as much to think that way. Jack, these things I know. It is always easier to hate yourself for crimes committed, then to look at the grief beneath it, and live that instead. You know that too.'

His voice was soft, it cracked over his words.

'The shadows are gone?' Jack said, reaching for his staff, and Pitch nodded. 'Can you get us the hell out of here? Please? Can we go to Kostroma?'

Pitch opened his arms absently, took up his axe, and didn't notice that Jack was also starting to cry when they teleported away.

He didn't have enough time to snap himself out of it by the time they arrived in Pitch's room in Kostroma, where the weather was inclement and raining heavily. He stepped away, rubbing a hand over his face, trying to erase all signs of his distress. How was it that Pitch could comfort him over and over again and be straight-faced and calm about it almost all the time, even when he could read other people's fears, and when Jack did it, it wrecked something inside of him? He didn't understand that at all.

'Jack?' Pitch said, quietly, and Jack shook his head. His chest hurt.

'Come here,' Pitch said, voice soft. 'It helps, you being close.'

Jack stared at him, certain Pitch was lying, and that was when Pitch caught Jack's expression and he winced.

'Come here,' Pitch said, resting his axe against the wall and sitting down on the side of the bed. 'Please?'

Jack put his staff down and floated over, tucking his legs under himself and looking at Pitch warily. Pitch reached out and thumbed some of Jack's tears away.

'I don't like to think of how many years I've lost,' Pitch said, and Jack shook his head.

'You mean how many were taken from you.'

'I...'

'Those shadows victimised you,' Jack said, voice persistent, even though he felt more tears close to the surface.

'Jack, I handled myself. I survived.'

'You're...lying to me,' Jack said, amazed. 'You're lying to yourself. You survived, okay, yeah. You handled yourself? What is that? What does that even mean? You just told me it's easier to think of yourself as the Nightmare King, does that sound like...what does that sound like to you? What would you say to me if I said that to you?'

Pitch closed his eyes and swallowed.

'Yeah, you know how I have all that crap I haven't dealt with in like...three centuries? I'm thinking you know a little of what that's like.'

Jack crawled closer and wrapped his arms around Pitch's middle, took a deep breath. He felt like he had the airplane hangar all over him, and he realised he probably did. He smelt of metal and dust, so did Pitch. Except that Pitch had bits of actual metal clinging to the felt of his robe, there was a small tear by his sleeve. Jack had no idea when or how that had happened.

'I finally understood what he meant,' Pitch said, and Jack squeezed tighter, waiting for Pitch to explain.

'When Gwyn told me I would one day understand the purpose of the axe, I was very tempted to punch him. But now, Jack, we would never have survived without that axe. The sword couldn't cut through metal like that, and whatever alloy the Glasera dwarves used with the sword-metal...I've never used anything quite like it. It carries a broader array of light. The axe allows the light to move in two directions at once, instead of a single wave. He made, he made the right choice. I've been stubborn.'

'Oh, really?' Jack said, rolling his eyes. 'You? Stubborn? About the axe? You don't say.'

'Careful, you're starting to sound like me,' Pitch said, and Jack buried his face in Pitch's robes. There were worse things in life, he was sure.

'Can you tell me something?' Jack said, into the robe itself. Pitch waited, which Jack took to mean that he could. 'Can you tell me why the sword was like...the locket?'

Pitch took a deep breath, held it, and then sighed it out. He twisted onto the bed properly, moving up towards the pillows, and then pulled Jack over, so that Jack was lying alongside him, head resting on his chest. Pitch wrapped an arm around Jack's back, and looked out of the large, glass window, eyes distant.

'Once,' Pitch said, voice deep. 'Once, if you can imagine, there was a young girl who laughed and skipped and hardly walked a single place in her life if she could run there, no matter how often she grazed her knees. Her parents were Golden Warriors and they fought a terrible darkness. She didn't live with them, but she saw them as often as they could see her, and she loved them so fiercely she learned the wooden swords herself from a very young age. She wasn't a Golden Warrior, but she was determined to learn what her parents knew.

'When she saw me, especially as she got older, she would marvel over my weapons even as I marvelled over her. She knew how sacred the sword was. It is a gift, a sacrosanct gift against the dark. It is given to us by the stars, and it is worked into its form by a single smith who etched our alphabet into its blades and with it, told our story. We only needed to look down and there, an alphabet reminding us that we had confronted the shadows in our very heart of hearts and survived. That we had met the stars and been gifted with the ability to create the golden light.'

Jack looked up at Pitch, and Pitch was looking down at him, a faint smile on his face.

'So you see that the weapon was already very important to me, even...before,' Pitch said. 'I – more than the others perhaps – needed the constant reminder that the light had found me worthy, because even with my arrogance, I still couldn't quite understand why I had been found worthy. To see the sword in my hands, its alphabet reminding me that I, like the others, could make the golden light... it kept me from becoming overly arrogant. It grounded me when I lost my way. It literally held the light against the dark.'

Pitch absently placed a hand in Jack's hair, and Jack flinched away, making a sound of frustration at himself.

Pitch stiffened and then placed an apologetic hand against Jack's face.

'Should we stop?' Pitch said, and Jack shook his head, forcing himself back up again, recovering the few inches he'd lost when he'd jerked back.

'When I was taken by the shadows, I fought them. I was only freshly possessed and I fought. There were moments where I was a conglomerate of shadows. Moments where I was myself. Moments where I could not distinguish between the two. And in amongst all of that: Carnage. Evacuations. My people whom I had protected all my life panicking, running away at my footsteps. And, all of it in flickers. Sometimes I would come back to blood on my hands, dripping from my mouth, bodies around me. Sometimes I would come back to Nightmare Men rising from the bodies of dead Golden Warriors. Sometimes I would come back and I would simply be stalking down a hall, shrieks in the distance.

'Seraphina...was to be evacuated. I have pieced together her story, in this. Pieced it together and this is what I know. She must have escaped her guardian, run down into the prison of the living shadows where I'd dropped my sword, the Nightmare Men unable to bear the pain of it. She took up the sword and brought it back to my room, knowing that at some point I – my possessed self – would go there, looking for things to destroy, to loot, to take on the Nightmare Galleon.

'My brave, my bravest girl, she placed the sword on my bed, knowing what it meant to me, knowing that she herself could not stay. And then, do you know, she always loved flowers. We had flowers such as you have never seen on this planet. Flowers that glowed and changed colours, tiny flowers the size of grains of sand that chimed like bells when you picked them. And Seraphina, not being a Golden Warrior herself, loved everything of nature, cultivated them, had a wonderful gift with them. She had her own garden at a young age, and that garden loved her.'

Jack's heart was beating so hard he thought it was going to come out of his chest. He reached up and touched Pitch's face, felt hot tears against his fingertips, and stroked his cheek.

'She took the nicest, the best flowers from the garden. The ones she told me were too nice to even pick, the most precious ones – some only flowered once every five or ten years – and she spread them all around the sword. A circle of dazzling colour and light. And then, she did evacuate. I do remember that much. To where, I don't remember. For how long? I don't remember.'

Pitch's voice broke, and he took several deep, shuddering breaths.

'And the Nightmare King strode into that room and saw the sword and Jack, that sword, it hurts the shadows. They loathe that metal as you cannot imagine. But he stopped, I even remember the shock of it. For there was a space left and I fought my way back into my own body and saw it, and knew that she was gone, had fled, had left me this sign. A sign that I should fight. A reminder of my initiation. And I remember, then, fighting in my own mind against the living shadows, a terrible, agonising battle, in which we shredded each other. Even now...it is among the most terrible pains I have ever lived in my entire life.

'For the briefest moment, I won back myself. I could not touch the sword, but I wrapped it up – flowers and all – in the blanket and even though the Nightmare King drove my steps mercilessly to the Nightmare Galleon, I was able to stow it where I thought he might not find it. And then...my mind was taken from me, and I forgot. Something about that fight meant the Nightmare King couldn't throw it away. When I came back to myself in the lair, after the Nain Rouge had attacked me, I found an ancient blanket in a cupboard, and desiccated flowers inside, still fragrant after all that time. I found a sword...'

Pitch's voice broke, and he turned to his side, his knees pressing up against Jack's body, as he tried to curl in on himself.

'I miss it,' Pitch said, laughing at himself. 'It's materialistic but I do. I see that axe and it is not at all like holding the message my daughter gave to me, the message the stars gave to me.'

Pitch shuddered away into silence and Jack practically crawled on top of him, trying to hold those terrible tremors in, even while shedding his own tears. He felt awful. He hadn't known. But the worst part was – even if he had known, even if he had, they still needed to do it. They still needed to sacrifice the sword to get Pitch back.

It all made sense now; how upset and vicious Pitch became when he discovered the sword had been destroyed. He must have come back from the Nightmare King a second time and...to not even have that anymore...

Pitch only really had two connections back to what he cared about in his past, and Jack had destroyed one of them.

'I didn't know what else to do,' Jack said, his voice breaking, and Pitch wrapped his arms around Jack tightly, half-rolling him into the bed.

'I know,' Pitch said. 'I don't know what else you could have done. I still have the locket. I have you. I have myself.'

'Yeah,' Jack said quietly, but he knew in that moment, it wasn't enough. Pitch had probably told himself all of those things, many times, since discovering the sword had been destroyed. He pushed his other hand into Pitch's hair and stroked his cheek, sighing.

Two more locations.

Jack hated the Nightmare King. Hated him. That he would plot to do something like this. It wasn't even the planting of the living shadows in different locations, or the foresight needed to do that. It was the cruelty of it. He'd taken enough, already, and that he could do this, beyond the grave, was the taste of bile in the back of his throat, and the feel of saltwater against his fingertips.

'You're so strong,' Jack said, and then tightened his hand in Pitch's hair.

I love you.

He couldn't say it. The words waited on his tongue, ready to spill, but he couldn't push them forth. He was afraid. Afraid the timing was wrong, afraid Pitch wouldn't want to hear them now.

But Pitch's arms tightened around him anyway, and Jack wondered if Pitch could read the message of it through Jack's fears.

He hoped so.

Author's Note: In our next chapter, 'Share and Share Alike,' Pitch and Jack travel to Pemberton, Western Australia, where the Nightmare King has stepped up his terrorisation of Pitch. And Jack begins to share some of his own trauma with Pitch.

6 chapters left!