"Grey"

The moment Jack's boots touched down upon the grassy earth, he was already marching toward the mess hall. His body was aching, muscles desperate for rest and eyes pleading to be closed, but his mind was too awake for sleep. His thoughts had been consumed by the harvesting plant, the faces of the subjects and the flames ushering them to a better place, and each led to a singular question.

Did they know?

Elsa and Astrid touched down behind him a few seconds later, fortuitous since Anna was already striding from the mess hall to meet him, Kristoff in tow. Anger was written upon her countenance, a kind of confused seething. To Jack's internal surprise, he anticipated the inevitable argument with relish. Something inside him was straining, gnashing to be unleashed.

"The hell's going on, Jack?!" she said, arms spread as she beelined for him, forcing his abrupt halt. "We go through all this to save my parents, and then you have them confined?"

"I had them confined, Anna," Elsa said from behind him.

"Yeah, I know you gave the order, 'sis—" Anna gestured at Jack, glaring, "but you wouldn't have done it without his say so. So what gives?"

Jack stiffened, letting out a controlled breath. His cold blue eyes locked with hers. "You'll find out soon," he said in a low voice, "but right now, you're going to move."

"No, I won't." Anna folded her arms. "Not until I know why my parents have been locked in the mess hall."

Jack harrumphed and strode past her, hand clenched around his staff. Kristoff looked like he was about to intercept him, but hesitated after a single glare.

"Don't you walk away from me!" Anna called. "You stop and you tell—"

That which had been straining against him broke free with a snap. Jack whirled around, and stalked up to her with cold fury written upon his face.

"You seem to have forgotten respect for the chain of command, Streak, so let me reacquaint you," he said, almost snarling. He held up a hand, palm down. "Up here is me."

He lowered his hand an inch. "Next is your sister."

Another inch. "Here's Astrid and Rapunzel."

His hand then fell a further inch. "And here, along with everyone else? You."

He then leaned toward her, resting that hand on his hip. "What that means is that I don't have to tell you a goddamn thing, but when I do, it's out of goddamn courtesy. Do you understand?"

Anna, who up until that point wore an expression of startled shock, blinked and slowly nodded.

"Good. Any other time I'd be okay with you talking to me like you did, but I'm only gonna say this once: right now, you do not want to fuck with me."

"Jack," Elsa moved to stand behind her sister, "I think you've made your point."

Jack's eyes lingered on her for a moment, before returning to Anna's wide sky blues. His fingers relaxing, his dark expression began to soften, and he took a long, calming breath. Yet, whilst the vehemence faded from his voice, the firmness yet remained when he finally spoke.

"I am going to ask your parents one question. Just one. After that, I'll tell you and everyone else what we saw… and then you'll understand just how important their answer was."

Jack took two steps back and prepared to resume his journey as he addressed the small group. "Elsa and I are gonna talk to Mr and Mrs Snowfield. When we're done, I'll brief everyone in the command centre. 'Til then… think happy thoughts. You're gonna need 'em."

With that, Jack set off for the mess hall, Elsa quickly catching up to walk at his side. "You were unnecessarily hard on my sister," she said in a voice low enough for only him to hear.

"Maybe I was," Jack replied, "but I'm not her best friend anymore, so I don't have to tolerate her shit."

"Oh, no. Don't get me wrong. My sister was rude and insolent, and often needs reminding that rules are not simply guidelines for her to follow when she feels like it." Elsa drew her hands behind her back. "However, Anna just got her husband and our parents back in her life. She's not exactly in an emotionally stable place."

"Right." Jack's hand went to the handle of the mess hall door. "And you and I are all sunshine, roses and birdsong inside."

"I didn't say that," Elsa said as she paused before going past him. "And she doesn't know what we've seen. Truth be told… I wish I didn't."

Jack looked over his shoulder at Astrid, who had buried her face into a newly arrived Hiccup's shoulder, and was lightly jerking.

"Makes three of us."

Elsa followed his gaze, and let out a pitying sigh through her nose, before choosing to head inside. Jack looked down, taking a few moments to thank fate for keeping him alive for a while longer, and then followed.

Agdar and Idun looked up as soon as they entered, sat on opposite sides of the furthest end of the table directly ahead of him. Their hands were held over the surface, steel mugs of steaming liquid their contents. The clicking closed of the door behind him triggered the same confrontational anger, the identical burning in his chest, and his hand clenched around his staff once again. Before he knew it, he was striding to the closest end of the table, heart slamming his ribcage, and his voice came out in a loud snarl.

"Did you know what went on in the plant?"

Agdar flinched, nervously eyeing both him and Elsa. "What about—"

Idun jumped as Jack slammed his fist on the table. "Don't bullshit me, Mr Snowfield. I've lost one good friend, another is in the infirmary and I've had to abandon my people to save you two from that camp. So I'm gonna ask again, one time. Did. You. Know?"

Idun cried, "No! Why? What happened?"

Elsa rested her hand on his shoulder, soothing his anger like a cool breeze on a warm summer's day. "They don't know, Jack. It's obvious."

Jack straightened up and whirled around, walking away from the table as he wiped down his mouth with a long exhalation through his nose. Elsa began recounting to her parents the events following their arrival at the plant, leaving no detail out, from the state of each abnormal rigged up on the beds to the crematorium chamber at the rear of the plant. Every now and then Jack could hear Idun's gasps and Agdar's intonations of shock, and tried his best to keep the image of Clarity's body out of his mind.

"We didn't know," Agdar finally said quietly. Jack turned around. "I mean… we knew something was wrong with that place."

"You might wanna clarify that," Jack said.

Idun squeezed her husband's hand. "When we overheard the guards talking about the plant and the harvest, we thought it was something bad, but…"

She hesitated, causing Elsa to prompt her. "But?"

Agdar opened his mouth, his frowning eyes off in the distance as he visibly considered his words. "Every day, we were allowed an hour of sunlight usually before sundown. Now, we'd reach the surface just as the prisoners were being moved to their… accommodation."

"We thought it was Derrickson's way of unsettling us. Reminding us who had the power there," Idun added.

"Over time, we noticed fewer and fewer inmates," Agdar continued. "Some faces, some physical attributes we recognised from before were no longer there. So when we heard the guards say what they said…"

"You put two and two together." Jack looked between them. "Figured they were connected."

Agdar nodded, words leaving him as he buried his forehead in his hands. Idun immediately rose to comfort him, her hands stroking his shoulders. "We knew that place was significant. That's why I suggested you find it. We just… we had no idea it was so terrible."

Jack looked at Elsa, who nodded a single, slow time as she met his gaze. "I believe you."

"We still need to know why Hans went to so much trouble to capture and imprison you," Elsa said, "but that can wait until later. I suggest you get some rest."

"Standard barracks, I'm afraid," Jack said, scratching his temple. "Officers quarters are all booked up."

"That is luxury compared to what we had in the camp." Idun stood aside so Agdar could rise. "Thank you. And… thank you for rescuing us."

Jack found himself bereft of a response, so elected for a rapid nod of acknowledgement. Elsa went to escort them out of the mess hall to the barracks, and told him she would meet him at the command centre once her parents were settled in.

"Frost to all Ghosts," he said over the comms, "report to the command centre in ten minutes for debriefing."

"Blondie here," came Rapunzel's voice, "that's gonna be a problem. Pitch is refusing to leave Hunter's side."

Jack huffed a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Fine. Report to the infirmary; we'll do it there. How's she doing?"

"Still a little early to tell, but she's stable. Ask me again in a few hours."

"Copy that."

The infirmary was silent, save only for the reassuring consistency of the heart monitor. Eyes found walls and the floor. Bodies closed in on themselves, or sought the comfort of others. Jack was hardly surprised. After all, learning the fate of a thousand of their kind plus the possibility of more was a definitive conversation-killer.

"So that's where we'd have gone, then," Kristoff said in a small, quiet voice. "If you hadn't saved us. That's where we'd be."

"Dodged a bullet seems pretty… inappropriate," Eugene added. "Given, y'know, the circumstances."

"Was Belle there?"

Jack looked at Kozmotis, who still stared off in thought, his fingers laced together under his nose whilst his elbows rested on the chair's armrests.

"No."

"You are certain?"

"Dude, Belle was already gone when I got to her," Eugene said.

"Unity has desecrated and defiled our kind for their own ends," Kozmotis bit back in a low voice. "Violating a dead person is clearly something of which they are capable."

"Koz, I looked into the faces of every one of those people while I was pouring out the incinitol." Jack folded his arms. "Belle wasn't there. Don't ask me that again."

Golden eyes met his, lingering for a few seconds before moving away. Anna huddled closer into Kristoff's arms. Rapunzel squeezed Eugene's hand. Hiccup stroked Astrid's back in comfort. Silence once again reigned, with Jack's thoughts his only vocal companion. Maybe he was too hard on Anna as he was to Kozmotis. There was a thin line, the frailest wall between himself and destruction, the desire to lash out and punish, to visit wrath and break stone. Anger, biding its time behind bars of self-control and discipline.

"The question is," Rapunzel slowly began, "why they were there. The purpose for… what was done to them "

"We don't know that." Jack unfolded his arms and rubbed a thumb across his nose. "But that's where you come in."

Rapunzel looked up, her eyes dancing in surprise between the two highest ranked officers in the room. "Me?"

Elsa produced a data crystal from her pocket, and walked over to give it to Rapunzel. "We downloaded what we could onto that. We can't make sense of it, but you can - you're the chief medical officer, after all. Hopefully you'll be able to put the clues together."

"Piece of advice," Jack said in a monotone voice. "Have Eugene keep you company while you work. You'll… thank me later."

Rapunzel frowned with uncertainty as she turned the crystal over in her hand. "That doesn't sound like a good omen."

"Because it isn't." Jack took a long breath. "That crystal contains what happens when science and medicine don't have people like you to guide them."

"We don't have a Uni-Com though," Rapunzel pocketed the crystal.

"The Fairy has a basic interface you can use," Jack said. "But it can wait until tomorrow. First order is for everyone to get some sleep. Tomorrow—"

He nodded at Hiccup. "I need you to get me a damage report on the Fairy."

"Copy."

"Astrid, I want you to head back to Serenity. See if we can figure out how to exfil the other inmates."

"With your permission, I'll do it today." Astrid rubbed at her arm. "Just gimme three or four hours of sleep and I'll go."

"Alright. Take some food with you." Jack turned to Anna. "You two are gonna report back on how much ammo we have left."

"Right."

"Kozmotis and Rapunzel, you two can sort out watching Merida in rotation. Candace is going to chaperone Mr and Mrs Snowfield."

"You don't trust them," Anna said, her voice carrying with it a faint tone of accusation.

"No, I don't," Jack replied flatly. "Until I know why Hans had them holed up in that place and what they were doing, I'm considering them an unknown variable. The command centre, weapons hub and workshop are off-limits, and they won't go anywhere else without an escort."

"But… they're our parents," Anna said, her words faint. "They're not—Elsa, back me up here."

"I'm sorry, but Jack is right."

Jack shot Elsa a raised eyebrow. She stiffened, and held her hands behind her back. Anna gaped, visibly thrown.

"As their daughter, I concur with my sister that they are not a threat… but as a Ghost, I am unwilling to take that chance. Especially since one of us—"

She nodded at Merida's motionless form.

"—is in an incredibly vulnerable state."

"But… but… it's Mama and Papa we're talking about." Anna's mouth opened and closed, struggling for words.

"Yes, and they've been underground - literally - for three years and some change. We have no idea what has taken place, what they were involved in. Hans turned me into a weapon in six months, Anna, and he had Mama and Papa for three years. We need to be sure."

"It's not up for debate, Anna." Jack folded his arms. "You don't like it, I'll take your objection under advisement."

"You weren't like this with Candace," Anna said sullenly.

"I said it's not up for debate - so if anyone else wants to argue? Piece of advice. Don't." Jack went to the door and yanked it open. "You all have your orders. Dismissed."

Anna looked like she wanted to protest, but a quiet word from Kristoff put paid to that. In silence, everyone but Jack, Rapunzel and Kozmotis left the room, but when Elsa reached the door, Jack said, "I thought you'd have been on Anna's side."

Her back to him, Elsa's head slightly turned. "So did I."

She left without another word, and the tension caging Jack's lungs seeped out in a long breath. He parked himself on the edge of the unoccupied bed behind him, and ran his hands through his hair. His mind was a mess of memories and thoughts surrounding a small black hole he once called his childhood. Flashes of the Spirits and Furies, faces full of life rendered pale and vacant.

"You okay?"

Jack glanced up at Rapunzel, who was leaning over to check Merida's eyes. "I'm fine."

"Yuh-huh." She clicked her pen-light off and laid it on the unit at the side of Merida's bed. "I thought I was a hard-ass in here, but you made me look like a chump."

"Didn't mean to."

"I know." Rapunzel went over to a bowl of hot, soapy water and proceeded to wash her hands. "Need to talk?"

"No." Jack pushed himself up and headed for the door. "Keep me posted."

"For sure."

Jack pulled the door open, but hesitated when Kozmotis' voice reached his ears. "Don't try to contain the emotions you're feeling. They want to come out. Let them."

"Yeah, thanks, Yoda," Jack snapped, and left the room before he could hear a response.

Sleep did not come easily to Jack. In fact, it did not come at all. Every part of his body screamed for the sweet embrace of sleep, but his mind was as alert as it had been thirty-six hours prior.

It got to the point that he considered shooting himself with his stun pistol. Sure, it wasn't technically sleep, and he would have awoken with one hell of a headache, but his mind would finally be at rest.

However, being unconscious for five hours was objectively a bad call. Having their leader out for the count at a critical moment could be disastrous - and so, physically and emotionally exhausted, he remained awake. Not the best decision, and Rapunzel would give him hell if she found out, but it was the lesser of two evils.

Which is why, when she knocked on his office door to give her report on Merida, he told her what they both knew was a lie.

Rapunzel gave him a skeptical, bordering on sarcastic look. "Sure you did. You look refreshed and bright—Jack, get some sleep. Seriously. As your chief medical officer, I'm ordering you to—"

"I can't, Rapunzel." Jack leaned his elbows on the desk and rested his head in his right hand. "I tried. What I've seen… it won't go away."

"Then talk to me." Rapunzel took a seat opposite him. "I'm a pretty good listener."

"I just… I can't." Jack flopped back in his chair. "How's Red?"

Rapunzel chewed her lip, visibly considering pursuing the topic, yet chose to let it slide. "She's in a coma."

Jack's heart sank. "Shit."

"Yeah." She looked away. "Her heart beat is steady, she's breathing unaided - which is fantastic - but she's not responding to external stimuli. Koz and I tried to rouse her, he even poked her finger with a sand needle. She's just not registering any of it."

"Will she come out of it?"

Rapunzel shrugged as she looked at him, but her face wore the definition of 'grave'. "Hard to say. It's up to her, really. See—"

Rapunzel leaned forward with her elbows on her knees.

"—medical science tells me she should have died the moment she touched those cables. That much power flowing through the body would kill anyone."

"But not her."

"No." Rapunzel relaxed back. "Based on guesswork, I think her abnormality protected her from the majority of the power. Kinda dampened it. Problem is, there's only so much her body can take, and I think it overloaded her brain. Kinda like when a power surge forces a Uni-Com into standby mode."

"Can we do anything for her?"

"We make sure she's hydrated, has nutrients, is comfortable. Other than that, we wait and see. Hopefully her brain will reboot itself."

"And if it doesn't?" Jack hated himself for asking that question.

Rapunzel looked at him for a few moments, before her eyes fell and rose again. "Then she won't wake up."

The door rang out with a series of light knocks, and Jack already knew who was on the other side. Hiccup had a particular rhythm to how he knocked on a door, a kind of rat-at-at-at. Before he could say anything, however, the door opened, and sure enough, a head of shaggy brown hair poked through.

"Hey—" Hiccup's eyes danced between them. "—sorry, I can come back—"

"It's fine, we were finished." Jack gestured for him to enter. "What's up?"

"Well, good news is the Fairy's okay for Rapunzel to do her thing," he said as he closed the door behind him.

"Guess that's my cue," Rapunzel said, rising from the chair.

"Right. Let me know if anything changes."

"Sure thing. I'll be back soon with some sleeping tablets. You need sleep, Cap."

"She's right," Hiccup added, grimacing. "You look like hell."

"Fuck off. I'm a goddamn Adonis," Jack snarked back.

Rapunzel talked over her shoulder as she walked to the door, Hiccup standing aside to let her pass. "He's right. You're pale—well, pale-er—your eyes are sunken and your temper's shorter than I am."

"My self-esteem thanks you. Scoot."

Rapunzel indeed left, with one further reminder about the tablets, closing the door behind her. Jack rubbed at his eyes, and wiped down his face.

"So, what's the bad news?"

Hiccup shuffled his feet and adjusted his posture to the standard at-ease pose. "The power relays are damaged beyond my skill—well, not my skill—but my means to repair. I don't have the replacement relays, and I'm pretty sure we can't get any new ones."

"I thought you said Helas were tanky enough?"

"Yeah, I did, but… she's old, Jack. The Fairy's old. We've put her through way more than Helas are supposed to go through, and I've been repairing battle damage with basically what I can scavenge. If I had the replacement parts and the right workshop, she'd be back to badass, but—"

Jack raised an eyebrow. "She is badass, Hic."

"No doubt. Point is, I could only do so much on the Star, and that was with materials and assistance. Now?"

"I don't want to hear what you can't do, Hic. I want to hear what you can do."

Hiccup sighed, scratching the back of his head. "There is one thing I can do, but it's a pretty big tradeoff."

"What?"

"I can cannibalise some of the relays from the weapons systems and use them for the main relays. It should be enough to make sure she won't either drop out of the sky or explode."

"But?"

"It'd be permanent. If I do that, the Fairy will never be able to fire again. She'd be defenseless." Hiccup shrugged. "It's either that, or we roll the dice every time she takes off."

Jack leaned forward, elbows on the table, and buried his face in his hands. It was going from worse to worse, the day travelling upon a nice lateral line of doom and shitty luck. "Fuck today," he muttered. "Fuck today and the horse it rode in on."

"Sorry I couldn't give you good news, Cap."

"It's fine." Jack let one hand go, and supported the side of his head with his other hand. "Do it. We'll just have to be more… strategic with her."

"Right." Hiccup nodded, and headed for the door. "I'll get started. Gimme a couple of days."

"Yeah, yeah, just… take care of her, okay?" Jack looked up at him. "She's just as much a part of this family as any one of us."

Hiccup opened the door and made his way through. "I will. Get some sleep, Cap."

"Shut up."

Chuckles slipped into the room, silenced by the clicking shut of the door.

Not to let him slip her mind, Rapunzel returned a few minutes after Hiccup left, bringing with her a single sleeping tablet with the correct dosage adjusted for his physiology. Initially resistant, Jack eventually gave in and took the tablet - under her vigilant supervision - when she threatened him with taking him off duty if he continued to ignore her orders.

It had been a while since Jack had taken orders from someone. In a weird way he liked it, but liked the solid six hours of sleep he got a whole lot more. His mind had calmed into a pleasant fuzz, finally allowing his body to rest - so when his first watch took place not long after midnight, he was fresh enough to tolerate it a little better than most nights.

There was an old saying, though: it never rains, but it pours.

"Viking to Frost, come in."

Jack released his hand from Pippa's handle, and adjusted his crouched position on the roof of the command centre. "Frost here. Go ahead."

"We alone?"

There was a shaken, lost tone to Astrid's voice that sent a trickle of worry into his gut and mercilessly churned it. "Yeah. What—you okay?"

"No. Not even close. They're gone, Frost. They're all gone."

The twisting in his stomach became full nausea. 'They're gone'. She could only have meant the inmates. That was why she was sent, to find the camp. And now they were gone.

"You mean… they left? They—"

He knew it was clutching at straws. Astrid could have meant any definition of 'gone'.

"No. They're dead. They… they killed them, Frost. They killed them all."

"Who did? Reapers?"

"No, Frost!" Astrid sounded as though she was approaching hysteria. "Unity killed them!"

"Oh, God…"

"They must have found a way to open… open the bunker. They dragged them out. Shot them. Shot them all. They… they killed those innocent…"

Astrid's voice broke further. She was close to tears.

"God… they just dragged them out of the bunker and murdered them…"

Jack didn't respond. Couldn't. Astrid, the strong, forward momentum Astrid was shaken and lost, sounding a shadow of her former self. Faces plagued his mind, not only of the empty shells in the harvesting plant but of all the inmates who looked to him with hope and relief. Their way out, their escape from hell behind electrified fences and auto-targeting turrets. Their chance at freedom, vanishing like the smoke of the Fairy's jets as she fled. Dead faces of the betrayed and broken.

Jack clamped his eyes shut and rocked slightly. He grasped for something - anything - to hold onto in his mind. Cold logic. Cold logic.

Cold logic.

When he spoke again, he was back behind those walls that guided him in the plant. Protected him.

"They must have deployed the moment the sun came up." Jack let out a long breath. "Wiped out the camp to hide the evidence. They figure Reapers'll clean up the rest."

"It's… h-horrible—"

"Alright, Sergeant, that's enough. Need you focused. You with me?"

"Y-yeah. Yeah."

"There's nothing you can do for them now. I need you to hop back on Stormfly and come home. Soon as you do that, I want you to find Fury and talk to him. Just… talk it all out. Copy?"

"I copy. Heading home."

"See you soon."

Astrid's line fell silent shortly afterward, and Jack sent out a mental prayer to anyone listening for her to make it home safe.

He sent a further prayer that one of the worst days of his life would soon come to an end. He'd had enough bad news for one day.

As it turned out the following morning, the only good news was that though a dent had been made in their ammunition stores, it was small enough not to limit further operations or force a scavenger hunt to replenish their stores. Merida was still stable, and Candace had reported the Snowfields weren't up to anything untrustworthy.

However, if the ravens were considered bad omens, Jack felt surrounded by them, pecking at his hope. The situation felt like the darkest time in Ghost history, and for a few moments here and there, he regretted he was alive to see that time. If history liked to attribute names like Kristallnacht and Night of the Long Knives, then Jack had a few more to add.

Night of the Falling Star, and Two Days of Hell - because, when Eugene walked into his office with almost the same expression he wore in the apartment in New Arendelle, Jack's stomach sank to his feet.

"Hey," Jack greeted him. "How're you feeling?"

Eugene shrugged slightly. He looked better in the spare Ghost clothes than the dirty, tatty orange jumpsuit. "Better since the serum wore off. Without my gift… my brain kinda felt slow, y'know?"

Jack ignored the inadvertent dig. "Can't say I do."

"Yeah, well." Eugene took a chair opposite him. "You wanted a report on what was on that crystal."

"Yeah. Where is Rapunzel?"

"Crying. She's in her room, crying. Has been for the last hour and a half. Anna's with her now. Told me to fill you in."

Jack frowned and leaned forward. "She okay?"

"No." Eugene spread a bitter smile. "She's really not. Why her, huh?"

"Wait, what?"

Eugene's face darkened, glaring at him. "Why'd you get her to do it? Wasn't enough you saw what was done, you had to bring her down, too?"

Jack raised an eyebrow, his expression turning stony. The burning feeling of antagonism reared its ugly head again. "I needed to know what Unity was doing. We had clues. Rapunzel is the only one who can put the truth together."

"You could have asked Anna."

"Anna's experienced in pre-war medicine, not modern tech. Not like this. You know that."

Eugene stared at him for a few moments, before looking off to the side. Classic Fitzherbert unwillingness to concede the point. "Yeah, well, what you asked, and what she found out, fucked her up."

"You still haven't told me what that is."

Eugene relaxed back into the chair. "They're harvesting us. They take people from the camp, dose them with tardioxin until their brain practically shuts down. Then they rig them up, drill stimulators into their brain, attach stimulators to their heart and lungs, and they keep them alive like that. Make the lungs breathe and the blood pump. Trick the body into thinking it's alive."

Jack closed his eyes, and felt a shiver up his spine. His hands gripped the armrest of his chair and squeezed. "Why?"

"For the same thing that gave us all our gifts in the first place."

Blue eyes snapped open, finding hazel. "The Toxin?!"

"Yeah. Apparently, we abnormals still have trace amounts of it in our bodies. And it varies; the more powerful you are, the more you have. So, someone like me is a snack, but you? You're a three course meal by comparison. So they use nanites to disintegrate the cells, a special fluid called silveria to collect it in the bloodstream, and drain it from their bodies before sending the blood back via a dialysis machine. They're literally on tap."

"That'd kill us."

"Yeah, but here's the really fucked up thing. Those cellular regeneration films heal the cells destroyed by the nanites. Those cells are in a constant state of destruction and regeneration, over and over. Endless. Like the body's being torn apart and stitched back together at the same time."

"But why? Why… what do they want the Toxin?"

Eugene's expression didn't change. "Your staff is made of it."

Jack blinked. "What."

"Yep. We all know the story of how unidium came about. Concentrated Toxin, certain metals, boom. Thing is, Unity's got a unidium shortage, right? They can't make more by replicating T-Day, 'cause no-one knows how the toxin was made in the first place, so they're desperate. And what do they do?"

"They harvest it from us."

"Bingo. Their cities, their vehicles… Elsa's sword, all made from the literal blood of our kind." Eugene shrugged. "Well, first two were probably made before we became battery animals. Elsa's sword, though… definitely a product of it."

"Doesn't explain the cremation chambers." Jack suppressed a shudder at the memory.

"Well, eventually all taps run dry. That, or maybe the body just gives up, twigs that it's actually dead and switches off the lights. Either way. They unhook those poor bastards, shove them in the cremation chambers and rig up new bodies." Eugene shook his head. "Sick motherfuckers."

Jack abruptly pushed himself to his feet. Resting one hand at his hip, he turned his back to Eugene and moved away from the chair, staring at the wall as his other hand rubbed his chin. "Do we know if there are any other… plants?"

"Not that we could see."

"Right." Jack's hand went down to his other hip. "Dismissed."

He heard the creak of the chair as Eugene's weight left it. Footsteps followed, but when the click of the door opening reached his ears, confrontation bubbled up inside him. "Eugene?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm gonna let your behaviour earlier slide on account of the shit you went through, and of how much you care for Rapunzel. So, that one's free, but—"

Jack turned and fixed him with a cold glare. Eugene stiffened.

"—you ever come at me like that again, you'd better be prepared for what happens after. Got it?"

Eugene opened his mouth, but decided against anything he might have said. Nodding slowly, he left the room, closing the door behind him. Jack stared after him, letting the breath trapped in his chest slip out in one long exhalation.

He couldn't blame Eugene. The man had been through hell, and was only protecting the woman he clearly loved. He was bound to react in such a way - hell, Jack had snapped three times in two days. He'd be the same.

Jack turned on his feet and wiped a hand down his face. The Ghosts were together, but it felt like life was falling apart. A thousand abnormals dead, an old friend dead, learning of the fate of every abnormal they failed to save. He felt a longing, a wish, for life to go back to when he wasn't commanding officer of the Ghosts. When the dark days weren't his to see, when he could crack a joke and set up an elaborate prank. When he and Anna were still best friends and he still had his memories.

When Jack turned a little in his vague grasp for direction, his eyes fell upon the drawer of his desk. He remembered precisely what was put in there, and an urge gripped his heart.

Like that, he had direction.

The three glass tablets tucked under his arm, Jack lifted up the workshop's corrugated gate and stepped inside. The evening's sunset cast a beautiful set of golden beams through the windows, drowned by the artificial lighting overhead, and Jack caught the faint scent of smoke in the air.

The Fairy sat on her landing skis, segments of hull plating unscrewed and laid in neat piles on the ground - typical Hiccup order. The man himself was halfway up a set of stepladders, peering into the nose of the ship with a welding mask perched on his head, a look of concentration on his face.

"Hiccup," Jack said.

He looked up, faint surprise crossing his face. "Oh. Whassup Jack?"

"How's it going?"

Hiccup climbed down the ladder as he answered. "Getting there. Feels bad, though. Like I'm pulling out her teeth."

Not as bad as Jack felt. It was his fault for jumping the gun.

"Yeah." Jack nodded at the Fairy. "Her internal computer okay to be switched on?"

Hiccup blinked, giving him a bemused look. "Well, yeah, but I'd have to stop working on account of, well, not dying by electrocution."

"Fine. Call it your break." Jack stood aside. "Can you give me the room?"

He said it in such a tone as to leave no wriggle room; an order rather than a request. Hiccup stared at him for a few seconds, before mumbling something about seeing Astrid, and left the workshop. Jack followed him as far as the gate, and pulled it down for privacy.

It was just him and the Fairy.

"I'm sorry," he said as he walked over to rest a hand on her hull, feeling the cold metal kiss his hand, "for what we're doing to you. You've been nothing but good to us. You don't deserve this."

He let his hand longer a few more seconds before drawing it away, and made his way up the embarkation ramp toward the pilot cabin. He parked himself in the pilot's chair with a tired sigh, and looked at the centre console, where a small rectangular slot was situated just below the holo-interface projector. Jack took one tablet off the stack on his lap, placed the others on the floor at his side, and flicked a switch on the centre console.

The ship's systems hummed into life, backlighting drawing his attention to the myriad buttons, switches and levers. Jack's lips twitched; the old girl was still purring.

"Welcome, Frost: Handsomest Ghost," the onboard AI greeted him.

"Hey honey, I'm home." Jack turned the tablet over in his hand. "Status on external data device reader."

"Nominal."

"Fine." Jack leaned over to slot the tablet into the receptacle, and a faint white light shone through the transparent object. "Initiate scan."

"Scanning." The AI fell silent for a few moments, before returning. "There are three hundred and thirty four names. Displaying information—"

"No. Audio." Jack rubbed at his jaw. "Read them to me."

The Fairy's AI complied with his request, and immediately began reading out the three hundred and thirty four names in alphabetical order. Three hundred and thirty four names, from over a dozen nationalities. Japanese. Korean. African. Middle-Eastern. Men. Women. Teenagers. All equal before death.

Jack stared, vacant, through the cockpit windshield as the names were uttered by the AI's calm, neutral voice. Every now and then, one reached his ears that he recognised. Ellis, Mackenzie F.

Esperanza, Maria. Fury and Spirit, respectively. His mind would subsequently fill itself with memories of running into them on the Star, or coordinated strikes alongside them.

Yet with each passing second and spoken name, as each tablet was changed, Jack felt control of his body leave his mind and seek refuge in something altogether more raw, more primal, unfettered by experience and untempered by reason. When the AI began speaking surnames beginning with the letter V, and landed on a particular name, Jack felt himself snap. Blank like a robot, expressionless, he pushed himself up from the chair and made his way through the passenger cabin, his limbs moving on their own while the AI continued to read. He glided down the embarkation ramp and turned to the left, slowly walking to the blank wall under the windows. He feathered his fingers across the plaster and rested his forehead upon it, closing his eyes as he felt the rough surface against his skin.

His fingers clenched in on themselves. The feeling of hot confrontation welled up inside his chest, a volcano preparing to erupt. He slammed his right fist against the wall. Left. Right. Left. Right. Again. Again he drove his fists into the wall, teeth gnashed together, knuckles splitting, a stinging pain evolving into a harsh pain.

He stopped only to unleash a primal roar, a cry born of rage, anguish, grief and guilt, that tensed his entire body and sent his skin blood red with sorrowful fury. A scream fuelled by a thousand and forty five lives failed. Jack of a Thousand Voices. Again he pummeled the wall, the plaster shattering and giving way to brick and mortar. He felt his knuckles crack inside, felt the wetness of his own blood on the wall, felt the agony coursing through his arms until they went numb. He did not stop, not even to let out another enraged cry.

He failed them.

Elsa felt it even before she heard the shuffle of activity in the corridor outside her quarters. She knew something was wrong when her heart burst with rage, pain and grief, like an explosion in a quiet room. Not to mention the searing ache in her knuckles. Dropping her book on the bed, she darted to the door and wrenched it open just in time to see Rapunzel rush past toward the barracks entrance, and followed.

Evening air kissed at her skin as it slipped through the open barracks door, the backs of Rapunzel, Astrid, Anna and Hiccup greeting her as they stood staring at the workshop.

"What the hell is going on?" Astrid said. "Why does that sound like—"

"—someone punching something…"

It was then that Elsa heard it: a chilling, enraged roar coming from the workshop that rang out in the air with the clarity of a horn.

"That's Jack!" Anna gasped. "I've heard that scream before when Neve died!"

"Someone shut him up!" Hiccup hissed. "He'll bring all the Reapers down on us!"

Elsa barely heard him, for she was already running down to the workshop, worry and fear in her heart propelling her forward. Fluidly, she reached down and yanked up the corrugated door, and darted inside to find a sight that would stick with her for some time.

He drove his fists into the wall again and again, to the point that tendrils of blood sprayed around the point of impact, and that plaster had crumbled to the ground, leaving cracks that spread every which way. His hands were covered in crimson, guttural grunts and pained roars escaping his throat.

"Jack!" Elsa rushed to him. She reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder and roughly tried to twist him away, but he wrenched from her grasp and continued to pummel the wall. The tears she glimpsed streaming down his reddened face stabbed at her heart.

"Jack!"

She tried again, and once again he would not be deterred. He was going to put his fists through the wall if he carried on, she knew it. She tried once again, and with all her strength and zero grace, grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him to the ground, and then immediately ran to him. She scooped him up in her arms and held his head against her chest.

"It's okay," she murmured, slowly rocking. "It's okay."

Jack let out a heartbreaking sound, sobbing and jerking into the fabric of her tank top. She stroked his hair and laid a kiss on his scalp, and her eyes travelled to the wall. Two holes in the plaster existed, lightly spattered with Jack's blood, cracks feathering in every direction. She glanced down at his hands, and her breath caught in her throat.

His knuckles were swollen and bloody, skin split in short gashes, crimson seeping down his fingers and crumbs of plaster dust flecked across the relative carnage. He must have been in great pain, yet didn't notice in any way, shape or form.

Elsa held him a little closer, enduring the sobs and cries for some time.

"It's okay, Jack. I'm here."

Elsa jumped up from the chair as Rapunzel closed Jack's door behind her, an expression of disquiet and concern upon her face.

"How is he?"

Rapunzel looked up, and offered half a smile. "He'll be fine. I gave him a sedative so he could sleep."

"What happened?" came Anna's voice from behind Elsa.

"He wasn't talking much, but from what he did say and from what Elsa told me, he was listening to the Fairy reading the names of the people in the plant when he just… snapped. Extreme emotional disturbance. Punched the wall and just kept punching." Rapunzel looked back at his door. "His knuckles were bruised, finger joints fractured, and there's a helluva lot of swelling and bruising, but nothing I couldn't fix. He'll be fine in the morning. He'll be sore as hell, though."

"Can I visit him?"

Rapunzel gave her a mildly bemused look. "Sure, but he's out like a light. Won't be much conversation."

Elsa smiled at her. "That's no problem. Thank you."

"No biggie. I'm gonna get a couple of hours before my next Merida Watch." Rapunzel moved past her, and added as she walked, "I tell you, having to work around Koz is a pain. He still refuses to leave her side."

Elsa wished her good luck, before moving to carefully open the door. As she expected, Jack was borderline comatose, and she welcomed the emotional and physical silence. Feeling his pain, hearing his agonised cries still rang out in her mind and memory. She sat at the edge of his bed, reaching out a hand to stroke her fingers over the side of his face.

She smiled faintly. He looked so peaceful, so serene, a far cry from the contortions of anguish and the deep frown of stress and anxiety. Leading was a tough role, she knew it well, and for Jack to be in command during what she figured to be the darkest period in Ghost history would have been a terrible weight on his shoulders.

But that was why the X.O. was there, right? To share the burden.

She looked down at his hands, laid on the blanket tucked over him. Rapunzel had done a good job cleaning his wounds, and were it not for the reddened swelling and purplish bruising, his hands would have looked good as new. Those same hands which nearly punched holes in a brick wall also had held her face with the gentle touch of a feather.

"You idiot," she whispered, still smiling. "You selfless, foolish, handsome idiot."

He did something for her once. She would repay that kindness.

Unlacing and then kicking off her boots, she pulled aside his blanket and laid beside him, snuggling close against his slumbering body and wrapping her left arm around his chest.

A/N: Woops. Think I'm overdue the monthly update. My bad.