Behind Enemy Lines

By: TG

Summary: When Jack Frost, a disillusioned Lieutenant in the United States Navy, is shot down behind enemy lines, he begins to realize that his yearning for adventure might be his downfall. Luckily he's got Tooth, North, Aster, and a whole boatload of people trying to get him home, and he might just make it…if the mysterious tracker doesn't get to him first.

Or: The time Jack Frost literally charms the pants off of Commodore Bunnymund and then gives him a whole head of grey hair.

Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians/Guardians of Childhood, the USS Carl Vinson, or the movie Behind Enemy Lines

Warnings: Language, sex, scenes of war, misused history.

AN: A lot of things happened this week. I was supposed to go on a trip but that got canceled due to the weather and the fact that I somehow got a type of ecoli and had to go on some pretty strong medication for it (\^_^/)

Sorry that you all had to wait to see whether or not Sandy is really dead huehuehue

Enjoy!


"Shit! Goddamnit!" Jack mutters to himself, fingers pulling at his hair as he watches his pilot's body being dragged away by the Serbs. This is definitely not supposed to happen. The Serbs and Croats are supposed to be cooperating with NATO's peace agreement, not killing American soldiers. Oh Christ, Sandy is dead.

He needs to get help. And to do that, he needs to get to higher ground.

He can feel his training kick in, taking over for his shocked mind, and he begins to slowly creep backwards up the hill, reluctant to turn his back on his enemies. It is an arduous process –twigs and rocks and tree roots litter the ground, so easy to step on or trip over. He is so very glad he'd done so well for himself in stealth training, but one thing bothers him as he carefully sets one foot behind the other –why are the Serbs still there? There is no way Sandy blabbed that there is still someone out there.

Unless –

a twig snaps under his foot

-they saw him eject.

Okay, so maybe he hadn't done as well as he remembered in his stealth training.

Every Serbian head still remaining in that clearing shoots up, every eye trains on him. In that instant, Jack feels like a deer in the middle of season –they had caught sight of him and would soon begin to hunt. It doesn't take long for his shocked brain to figure out that he needs to run –he turns and flees as fast as he can.

He knows right away that the trees are both his savior and his enemy. On the one hand, the trees provide cover for him. He can easily create angles between him and his pursuers by weaving through the trees, and the brush that covers the hillside hides his tracks for him. But on the other, the risk of him falling over tree roots, slipping on some loose shale, or injuring himself on the whipping tree branches that catch on his clothes is high. There is no way to be stealthy when every step echoes across the mountain. But what he is most worried about is the fact that the Serbs know the hills and mountains well. For all he knows, they could be herding him right into a trap.

He does manage to carry one advantage over all the others, though, and that is the fact that he is alone. The Serbs following him have the burden of tanks, trucks, and people –most of which cannot easily follow him through the trees. And they would be foolish to leave the equipment behind with no one to watch over it, seeing as they are surrounded by not one, but two enemies in Bosnia.

He runs for what feels like hours before he feels comfortable enough to slow. His chest and legs burn and his lungs ache from the cold winter air he's been breathing in and all he really wants to do is drop. But he forces himself to keep going, keep plodding along at a steady pace. Just because he can no longer hear or see his pursuers doesn't mean he is safe, and he really needs to get into contact with someone as soon as possible.


"Dream Sand, this is North Pole. Do you copy?"

The bridge is a hive of activity when Aster walks in. It appears that the crew has been attempting to contact the downed pilot and navigator for several minutes already –three people are stationed at the radio while several more are closely watching the radars and satellites in hopes that something will come through.

"Has someone contacted Admiral Lunar?" Pitchiner demands.

"He's been contacted and he's on his way. NATO bird," Tooth replies.

"Good. Now why the hell haven't we gotten in contact with Frost or Mansnoozie yet?!"

Aster clears his throat and steps further into the crowded room. "I believe I can answer that question, ma'am." He waits for Pitchiner's affirmation to continue, and then says, "Ma'am, it's been known that when a homing beacon on the seats is activated, it can interfere with the radio signals, causing difficulty in making contact."

"Then deactivate them."

"Ma'am, once they are remotely deactivated, the only way to get them activated again is to do it manually in person," Aster cautions.

"If there's trouble for them out there, then they probably won't stick around in one place long enough for us to find them. It's better to get in contact than to go by the beacon," Pitchiner explains, eyes soft despite her gruff exterior. Aster sighs but nods, knowing she is right and that the admiral cares about Jack and Sandy more than she often lets on. "Now tell me about the flight path."

Phil, one of the intelligence officers, brings the flight path up on the screen and shows Pitchiner the original flight path, and then the path the aviators had taken instead. Pitchiner curses and Aster can't blame her; Lunar will not be so willing to help them bring the crew home if he knows that they had deviated from the path and jeopardized the peace process he is so obsessed with.

The men continue to work on reaching the downed crew while the beacons are being disarmed, and finally there is a noise –a garbled static noise that hadn't been there earlier.

"Dream Sand, this is North Pole. Do you copy?" Tooth asks, warning everyone with a glance that now is not the time to celebrate –the person on the other end may or may not be friendly, and they won't be sure until they hear it for themselves. The men sober up and some even hold their breath as the static permeates the room.

"Dream Sand? This is North Pole. Do you copy?"

There is nothing but white noise, and it is obvious to the Aussie that though the men are determined to continue until told otherwise, they are starting to lose hope. And then finally the static is interrupted by something unidentifiable, and Tooth is about to try again when someone answers her calls.

"Copy, North Pole. This is 05 reporting from Dream Sand. Boy is it good to hear a friendly voice."

It feels sort of like the tension in the room has been halved at the sound of Jack's voice as everyone heaves a collective sigh of relief. Even Pitchiner has to hang her head as the anxiety and tension sweeps out of her; Aster is glad he is standing between Tooth and North, because it feels like his legs might give out, so strong was the relief that washed through him at hearing Jack's voice.

Tooth grins and hands him the radio. He is about to pass it off to Pitchiner, but the woman shakes her head.

"I put you in charge of this, remember? You talk to him. I need to ready the men for Admiral Lunar's arrival." With that, Pitchiner and nearly all of the men in the bridge make their way out and down to the flight deck. "Oh, and one more thing, Bunnymund. No names over the net."

The only people left are him, Tooth, Phil, and North, and he knows all of the are quite concerned with the safety and wellbeing of the downed crew, so he quickly raises the radio to his lips and hits the talk button.

"05, it's good to hear you too. Really good. This is, ah –" He breaks off and sends a pleading look to both Phil and Toothiana, who just shrug. North laughs and suggests Peter Rabbit, and Aster smacks him. "-this is Easter Bunny. Tell me, what is your count?"

"One. Count is one. Sand –ah, 04 was…was shot. Between the eyes, execution style."

Tooth gasps and North stops chuckling. Aster let several seconds tick away before he clears his throat and raises the radio back up to his mouth.

"Say again, 05."

"Count is one, Easter Bunny, confirmed."

Aster lets out a shaky breath, shocked; they all are. The mission was just supposed to be a routine mission, something to get their pilots more hours in the sky, and it had been on the back of everyone's minds in the wake of the holiday and the impending peace agreement. But this is anything but routine –this is turning into a nightmare.

"Copy, I…I understand. What is your status, then?"

"I'm okay for now. No major injuries to report. I left some of my gear at the crash site and I can't go back to get it now. Was a little rattled when I ejected at mach 3."

"Good to know," Aster replies with a sigh. He runs a hand across his face, trying to dispel the nausea he feels coiling up his throat. It is his first experience as a commanding officer and suddenly there is so much at stake. It is more than just the fact that there is a downed pilot behind enemy lines, but it is Jack. And Jack is alone.

Phil mumbles something and North sighs. "Sir, if I may speak freely?" Aster just waves a hand at him to continue. "Pull yourself together. Jack is depending on you –on all of us –to help guide him out of this. He needs you to remember that he's a trained soldier, and he needs you to be focused."

"Right," Aster murmurs, a light flush coloring his cheeks at having been caught nearly having a panic attack. He brings the radio back up to his mouth. "Okay 05, tell me what you saw. And remember, no names over the net."

Jack sighs into the radio. "I'm…We saw something suspicious in the demilitarized zone, so we flew over and took some recon pictures, and the next thing I know we're being painted by SAMs. We got the drop on one of 'em, but the other clipped us and we went down. Sa -04 and I ejected and landed on a hill not far from…well. I thought we would be okay for a while, so I left him to get to higher ground so the radio would work. I shouldn't have left him –" Jack cuts himself off, breath hitching quietly.

Aster's heart breaks at the sound, and he can't bring himself to look at the others. They all know Jack is blaming himself for the situation.

"I heard noises," the white haired man continues a moment later, quieter, more subdued. "I weighed my options and decided that showing myself would be detrimental, so I hid in the brush and watched. They must've talked to him, but I didn't hear what they said. He didn't say a word. And they –they –"

"They? Who is 'they'?"

"Serbs. Serbs in camo tracked us down and shot my pilot!"

"You're saying a uniformed soldier shot you down and killed your pilot?" Aster asks, voice deliberate and low. They have to be sure, absolutely sure, because the answer Jack gives could upend the entire peace process that NATO has spent months striving for.

"Yes."

Beside him North lets out a breath of surprise. The situation just got more complicated, and Aster can tell the other men in the bridge with him are starting to realize it, too.

The sound of footsteps reaches them just a few moments before the door bursts open and Admirals Pitchiner and Lunar and their men stride in. Pitchiner gives him a look and Aster frowns. Something isn't right.

"Wait one," he tells Jack before handing the radio off to North and Tooth. He has to give Lunar all of his attention –Admiral Lunar is the man in charge of all operations in the Adriatic Sea, so Jack's fate rests on his sturdy shoulders.

"Sir."

"Commodore Bunnymund, Admiral Pitchiner tells me you have been able to get in contact with your downed crew."

"Yes, sir, what is left of it. Frost tells me that their plane was shot down by Serbs in camo –"

"Is your aviator and expert on Bosnia?"

"…Sir?"

"I find it very difficult to distinguish Croats, Bosniaks, and Serbs based solely on their uniforms, and I have been stationed here for five years. I highly doubt your man has the training or the knowledge to come to that conclusion."

Aster stares at him, speechless, but Lunar isn't finished yet.

"How did your pilot get shot down?"

"He was on a recon mission –"

"And he deviated from the flight path, correct?"

"…Yes sir."

"Do you have any idea what this could do to the peace process?"

"Now wait just a minute, Lunar," Pitchiner cuts in, frowning and obviously frustrated. "I understand that the peace process is important, but what are we going to tell their families? That we couldn't –no, wouldn't –at least attempt to rescue their sons because we were too afraid of endangering the peace process? If the peace you've set up is so very tenuous –"

"That, Rear Admiral Pitchiner, is exactly what we will tell them. NATO cannot jeopardize what we have come so far to achieve. Your pilot will do what he is trained to do and hump it out to safe zone."

"Sir, the pilot –"

"The peace process will not be threatened, do I make myself clear? The Serbs, Bosniaks, and Croats know that NATO is close to pulling out and they will not risk that for themselves by harming an American. I am sure of it."

Lunar makes to leave, but pauses in front of Pitchiner to impart one last thing. "If you have already scheduled a search for your downed boy, call it off, or I will call it off for you." And then he's gone, leaving behind a room full of silence and frustration.

Pitchiner's glare after Lunar is so intensely angry that for a moment Aster fears that Lunar will look back and see it and they will all end up regretting it, but then it is gone, replaced with disappointment and determination.

"You heard him. We cannot organize a rescue for the time being. Bunnymund, tell Frost to meet at the rendezvous point Hotel Alpha Charlie Niner. I will be in my office, trying to figure this mess out."

No one moves or says anything for a few minutes after Pitchiner and her men leave the bridge. Everyone seems so subdued; none of them can believe what has just transpired. Did Lunar really refuse to search for and rescue a downed pilot?

Aster sighs and quietly asks Tooth for the radio again.

"05?"

"Still here, waiting for your directive."

"…Right. I'm so sorry, Ja -05, but your current location is undoable for pickup. We will have to ask you to get to RP Hotel Alpha Charlie Niner as quickly as you can."

"Wait, what? Ast –damnit Easter Bunny, that's too far away. Why is this spot undoable?" Jack demands, an edge of hysteria and panic creeping into his voice.

"Jack!"

Everyone in the bridge winces. Aster screws his face up in frustration at himself, angry that he'd just done something so potentially damning as letting Jack's name slip over the net. It is all well and good to talk about RPs and hotels and whiskys over the net because ideally no one but the US military and NATO has any idea where those locations are, but anyone could have heard Jack's name understood what it is. He shudders to think he might be responsible for revealing the information that can bring Jack down.

"05," Aster tries again, carefully. "I'm so sorry that you have been shot down. But we cannot pick you up at your current location. You need to utilize your training, create some more angles, and grow a pair. I was under the impression that US soldiers are well-trained, well-oiled machines. Now is the time to prove it."

"…Sorry, Easter Bunny. You're right."

"Strewth," he says airily, enjoying the chuckle he receives from the American. A gesture from Tooth catches his attention and he reluctantly hands the device over to her.


"Ja -05, are you okay?"

Jack has to smile at that voice. Tooth is like an older sister to him and it feels great to hear her familiar voice over the net. He hates how worried she sounds, though.

"Geez Tooth, you sound like I've been shot down behind enemy lines or something!" He teases, trying to lighten the mood. It apparently doesn't work very well, because a stern silence comes from the other side of the two-way.

"Okay, okay, too soon," he backtracks. "But seriously I'm okay. Couple of cuts and bruises but honestly there's nothing for you to get your panties in a wad over."

"That's a relief. You should probably get some rest while you can, Ja –ah, 05."

"I'm being tracked, remember? The bulk of the uniforms have stopped to regroup somewhere or something, but some guy in a black robe's been following me through the trees ever since I started running. S'got a sniper rifle on him, so I have to keep going, put some distance between us. And I'm pretty sure he's got the military on speed dial because when he arrived at the clearing it looked like he came with the bigwig or something."

When nothing is forthcoming from the radio, Jack is afraid he's lost the connection –a very precious commodity in his situation –but then he realizes that his friends are just fighting over the radio and he has to allow himself a laugh.

"Fighting over me, guys? I'm flattered, but seriously no," he says, laugh tapering off into a hopeful smile.

"Shut it, ya show pony," Aster murmurs and Jack grins. "Right now rest is important. You cannot expect to evade and survive if you're so tired you can't stand. And trust me, once the adrenaline wears off you will regret not taking a few hours to rest."

"Mm. I'm still kinda wired though. Tell me a bedtime story?"

"No."

"Aw, c'mon," he whines, grinning when he hears someone snort over the airwaves.

"Fine. Once upon a time there was a stubbornly annoying little boy with white hair and bright blue eyes and he told his parents 'one day, I wanna go into the navy!' and he did and his parents were very proud."

"Don't forget the part where he met a cute, angry Aussie," Jack points out.

The radio rasps a few times, as though it is expressing Aster's outrage at being called cute, and then North kindly informs him that Aster looks about ready to explode form either anger or embarrassment, the Russian isn't quite sure.

"You better get some rest now before he comes to kill you himself," the big man laughs. "Oh, he says to radio in tomorrow when you can. He'll be waiting."

The radio clicks, signaling the end of the transmission, and Jack folds it up and places it back in one of the chest pockets of his jacket. For a few minutes he almost felt like he was back on the Carl Vinson, joking around with all of his friends, and that this whole thing is just a nightmare he can wake up from. But the silence of the radio and the stillness of the trees around him force him back into reality, and he hates it. Hearing Aster's voice on that radio was a godsend, but he's right. Time to rest would be precious, and he needs to do it while he can.

So while a small part of him wishes that Aster actually had told him a bedtime story, he forces his loneliness and nervousness back and begins to scout out a good spot for rest. He knows instantly that he will have to climb a tree; he is unfamiliar with the kinds of animals that roam these hills and he doesn't want to chance an attack by either animal or human. Sleeping on the ground would practically be a death sentence. But as it is winter, there wouldn't be any cover for him up in the trees, and to forge a little nest out of leave and branches for him to rest on would be an all too obvious trick. He will have to strap himself to a bare tree limb and make sure the trunk is large enough to hide his body from prying eyes on the ground.

Jack meanders around for several minutes before he finally finds a suitable tree –the trunk is large, the branches will support his weight and aren't too close to the ground, nor too far up, and it appears to be shaded by other nearby trees.

"Best I'm gonna get," he mutters as he hoists himself up to the nearest branch and begins to shimmy up the tree truck. He hesitates at a few sturdy looking limbs before decided on a higher one, nervous about falling out but even more nervous about being caught.

It takes him even longer to figure out what to do with his pack and gun; he ends up slinging them around a smaller branch that stuck out from his bough –within reach but supported so that they won't go tumbling to the ground.

He then carefully shrugs his jacket off and prays that the sleeves are long enough to tie around his legs and the tree limb –they are. He breathes a sigh of relief and nestles back against the trunk. The whole affair is uncomfortable –the rough bark scratches and pokes him through his clothes and every time he starts to nod off he jerks himself awake, afraid to actually fall asleep in case he falls or misses the man in the black robes. He wants to know if and when Black Robes goes ahead of him.

Worry and anxiety can't get the best of his exhaustion, though, and he eventually finds himself stuck between sleep and wakefulness, where every sound translates into his waking nightmare –the creaking of trees becomes the sound of gunshots as he watches everyone he loves die in a spray of bullets, the skitter of animals is the sound of the enemy creeping up to kill him, too.

Eventually his eyes snap open and he is freed from the nightmarish prison of his own imagination, drenched in a cold sweat and still tied to the tree limb. Luckily his pack and rifle are still on the branch as well, and he quickly sets about untying himself and shimmying down the tree. He glances around him, uneasy about having been left alone for the entire night. He'd rather expected to be awakened to the sound of gunfire and orders shouted in languages he doesn't understand, but it is obvious that, aside from the natural sounds of the landscape, it is a normal, peaceful morning.

Well, it would be normal, if he weren't being chased by a contingent of bad guys.

He sighs and shakes his head, trying to focus. He has been told to get his ass to Hač, one of the safe zones that the UN set up during this mess of a war. The UN claims that the safe zones, established in cities like Sarajevo, Srebrenica, and Hač, are a collective humanitarian effort to protect the citizens of Bosnia from the ravages of war. But they are controversial, and Jack remembers learning in training that Bosnia doesn't even bother to put any effort into keeping the peace in the safe zones. They are supposed to be safe for everyone –NATO, American, Bosniak, Croat, and Serb alike.

But just because he is headed to friendly territory doesn't mean he can relax just yet. He makes sure his rifle is loaded and his pack is securely on his shoulders before he consults his compass and heads out, hopefully in the direction of his rescue. He feels the familiar flush of determination color his cheeks as he thinks about how he will have the rest of his life to hang out with his friends and find out what makes Aster tick.

Because he is going to get out of this alive.


AN: Thanks for your reviews/favorites/follows so far! They really mean a lot to me!

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