Jack didn't have nightmares.

He hadn't had so much as a single unpleasant dream for years now.

So it was a bit of a shock when he woke, gasping, from a doozy of one. He laid his arm across his face and groaned. Something to do with fire, he thought. He couldn't remember much now, the finer details were trickling out of his mind like water through a sieve. There was definitely flames, though, and screaming too.

"Just a nightmare." He muttered, shaking his head. He sat up to discover another unpleasant surprise. He was in one of the cages in Pitch's lair. "What?'

The sound of hundreds of little peeps and chitters drew his attention to several of the other prisons. In the cages next to his, Toothiana's entire workforce of mini-fairies was confined. Jack's brow furrowed in confusion. He peered through the bars, looked down, and saw the heaping mounds of tooth containers piled on the floor of the lair. Just like it had been before, a long time ago.

What was going on?

Jack tried the door of his cage and, unsurprisingly, found it locked. His staff was nowhere to be seen, either. "Pitch?" he called out, but there was no answer from the shadows.

There was a peep, however, from outside of the cage. Jack glanced downwards to see Baby Tooth climbing up the bars towards the lock, lugging a key slung over her shoulder that was almost as big as she was. Jack's face broke into a smile at the sight of his friend.

"Rescuing me, huh? I owe you one, Baby Tooth." Jack said, and the fairy gave him a smile in return, continuing her climb.

Sudden movement caught his eye and he lifted his gaze just in time to see a Nightmare loom out of the shadows and snap at Baby Tooth. Jack gasped and reached through the bars, grabbing her out of the way just as the creature's teeth clicked shut around the space she had occupied an instant earlier. The Nightmare shrieked in displeasure and struck its hooves against the bars, sending deafening clangs echoing through the cavern. Jack flinched backwards, curling protectively around Baby Tooth.

The bars prevented the Nightmare from getting at either of them, and after a few failed attempts to kick through, the creature whirled and charged off into the shadows once more.

"We'd better get out of here," Jack said, and Baby Tooth nodded in vehement agreement. She unslung the key from her shoulder and put it on Jack's palm. He unlocked the door and pushed the door open with a creak.

Jack eyed the far-off ground apprehensively. Without his staff, he couldn't fly, and it looked as though none of the mini-fairies or Baby Tooth were able to either. Just like before.

…Before what? Jack frowned and shook his head, trying to clear this thoughts. The Guardians had won, right? And… and he and Pitch were friends? Did that happen? His memory seemed a little fuzzy. Then why were he and the fairies trapped down here again? What was happening?

Baby Tooth patted his wrist and cheeped reassuringly. Jack shoved his confusion aside. He'd try to figure out that mystery when he was outside. "It's alright, Baby Tooth, I'll get us out of here," he said, placing her on his shoulder and swinging down so that he was hanging from his fingers from the bottom of the cage. The drop's not so bad, he told himself, and let go.

He landed on the piles of tooth containers hard, knees buckling and sending him sprawling down the slope of the mound. He finally came to a halt, wincing in pain. A moment's later inspection seemed to turn up nothing broken or sprained, just a fair amount of bruises. Baby Tooth seemed shaken, but unharmed. He clambered to his feet and looked up at the other mini-fairies in the cages. "Sorry, guys. I promise I'll come back and get you out as soon as I can."

Jack slid and stumbled off of the piles of tooth containers and, with no real idea of where he was supposed to go, headed down one hallway at random. Didn't he used to know this place pretty well? Why couldn't he remember where the exit was?

The path led him to the room that held Pitch's rusted globe. The sight of it made a shiver run down Jack's spine. It was dark. No lights glimmered on the surface of the continents.

No, there was one. A single, dim and flickering speck of light, of hope. "Oh no. Jamie!" Jack gasped, closing the distance to the structure and pressing his hand to the little spark as if he could reach out to and reassure the child that it represented.

He couldn't, of course. He had to get there in person. Jack felt a twinge of wrongness, like something was telling him that this wasn't how things were supposed to be.

Well, obviously this wasn't how things were supposed to be. Jack shoved aside his trepidations. He had more important things to worry about than some nagging feelings of unease. "We've gotta get out of here, Baby Tooth. Jamie needs us."

Baby Tooth chirped and tugged on his hood, pointing at one wall.

"Hm?" Jack followed her lead, walking to the patch of shadowed rock. "What's so important-" His eyes fell on a crack in the stone that he had mistaken for a patch of shade. Barely six inches wide at its largest point, but it seemed to lead to another room in the lair, and there, propped against the far wall of that room, lay his staff. Jack gasped and tried to squeeze through the crevice, but it was no use. Jamming his arm though the crack and straining at his utmost didn't even allow the tips of his fingers to brush his weapon. Jack sighed and pulled back.

"Well, at least we know where it is. We'll have to find another way arou-" Jack started to say, but Baby Tooth hopped off of his shoulder and slipped through the hole. "Baby Tooth, no!" Jack hissed, motioning for her to come back. "What if a Nightmare come back? You've gotta stick with m-"

"Out of your cage, Jack? Naughty, naughty. How did you even manage that?" A cold voice from behind him drawled, and Jack whirled around, pressing his back protectively to the crack in the wall.

Pitch stood several feet away, looking at Jack as if he were something particularly distasteful. A Nightmare trotted out of the shadows and came to his side, whickering. Pitch glanced at it, frowned, and looked back to Jack. "Ah. I must have missed one of Toothiana's little winged rats. Unfortunate, but easily enough rectified."

"Pitch, what are you doing?" Jack demanded.

"Really, Jack, I know you're not the sharpest tool in the shed, but even you should be able to figure this one out. I'm getting rid of the Guardians. And, since you so foolishly declined my offer of equal footing, you're my newest little plaything," the Nightmare King replied darkly, taking a step forward.

Jack clutched his head as he felt it again, that twinge of wrongness. "No, this isn't right. You wouldn't… We… we're friends."

Pitch gave him an incredulous look. "Oh my, have I broken you already? I would have thought that your mind would stand up to a couple dozen nightmares better than that, but you're already lapsing into delusions? Really?" And suddenly Pitch was in front of him, hoisting Jack up by the front of his hoodie, their faces inches apart. "Or is this some form of Stockholm Syndrome setting in?" he asked softly, a malicious smirk across his face. Jack could feel the man's hot breath on his cheeks and lips. "Thinking that you might be treated better if you suck up to me now? It's far too late for that, Jack." Pitch threw him roughly against the wall.

Jack grunted and slid to his knees, winded.

"Are we thinking a little clearer now, boy?"

"… No, this is a trick, or something." Jack said, shaking his head. More memories were filtering back now. Pitch pulled this sort of thing all the time, didn't he? Acting like the bad guy. Well, not so convincingly, perhaps, but still…

"Still deluded, I see."

There was a peep and Jack's staff was shoved through the crack and fell to the floor beside him. Jack snatched it up, picking Baby Tooth up, more gently, as well.

Was that a spark of triumph in Pitch's eyes? "Oh, so you were biding time for your little friend to retrieve your weapon. Clever. But it will take more than that little stick to turn the tide."

Nightmares reared into existence all around him. Jack grinned and shot upwards, soaring up out of their reach. Pitch didn't know what he was talking about, now that Jack could fly it would be a piece of cake to get out of here. And once he was out in the open, Pitch would go back to normal and reveal that of course there had never been any danger, right? Jamie was fine, and so were all the other kids, they had to be.

Piece of cake was maybe a bit of an overstatement, though. He'd tucked Baby Tooth into his hoodie pocket for safekeeping, and it was a good thing too, considering the aerial maneuvers he was having to pull off in order to keep out of the teeth of the pursuing Nightmares.

He didn't see any Hellhounds at all, oddly.

Finally he caught a glimmer of moonlight shining down into the lair. The exit! Jack arrowed for the opening, but a grinding noise brought him up short. The stone around the exit was closing. He didn't even know that was possible!

Already the opening was too small for him to get through. Jack hissed under his breath and fished out Baby Tooth. "Be safe, okay?" he whispered before tossing her out the hole. The sound of her peeping protests was cut off as the opening snapped shut.

Jack turned around just in time for a Nightmare to ram into him and send him spiraling downwards to land heavily on a bridge spanning a deep and dark crevasse.

"Really, was that your best effort? You're more pathetic than I thought."

"Pitch, stop messing around," Jack said, getting up and facing Pitch down.

"Do you think this is some sort of game, boy?" Pitch asked, eyes narrowing.

"I know it is," Jack said with a shrug.

"You're never going to escape if you don't take this seriously, Jack," the boogeyman hissed. "You're holding back, and that's going to cost you and your poor little Jamie dearly."

"I don't believe you, Pitch. You're not like this, and you don't fool me." Jack looked at the staff in his hand, then back to the boogeyman. "I said I trusted you, and I do." In one swift movement, he flung his staff over the edge of the bridge, where it plummeted into darkness and vanished. Jack spread his arms wide and lifted his chin, giving Pitch a grin. "So go on. Do your worst."

A look of utter shock covered the boogeyman's face for a moment. Then he threw back his head and laughed. "You really are a fool, Jack!" He flicked a hand and a towering wave of nightmare sand crested behind the boogeyman and rushed towards the Guardian. Jack didn't so much as move, and the sand washed over his unresisting form, drowning his senses in blackness.

The darkness consumed Jack.


Author's Note- The end. Ahahahaha! I blame LittleMana!*runs off*