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.

Author's Notes: I apologize for the delay. This chapter hasn't been checked so I'm sorry for any mistakes.


"Come on, almost there," Jack pants.

"Jack, tired," Sophie whines, but Jamie scoops her up and shifts her around to rest against his back, piggybacking her through the woods after the soldier.

Jack feels guilty, knowing that both kids are quickly becoming exhausted. They've been running nonstop through the woods for less than an hour, but once adrenaline leaves the body it is difficult to maintain the sharp awareness needed to navigate through the trees and keep out of danger. However, getting to the rendezvous point on time is paramount to their escape and possibly their survival, so they have to keep going. Doesn't keep Jack's heart from breaking whenever Sophie looks at him with her tired eyes and asks for a break, though.

Something snaps against Jack's awareness and he freezes. Jamie runs into him from behind and nearly dislodges Sophie from his back, but one look at Jack's face stifles his complaint. Jack holds a hand out, telling Jamie with one singular gesture to not move or speak. The boy claps a hand against his sister's mouth and keeps his eyes trained on Jack's tense back, waiting for a signal.

"Someone's following us," he murmurs, so quietly Jamie almost misses it. "We have to hurry."

Luckily they really are almost there, like Jack had said earlier. Just on the other side of the trees they can hear the faint sound of quickly approaching choppers, and the ragtag group bursts into the clearing at a dead run, laughing in sheer relief.

Jack is the first to notice that something is wrong.

"No. NO!"

The helicopters are turning around and leaving.

Jamie stops and sets his sister on the ground, staring while Jack runs on, chasing the helicopters down like a madman. He pulls out his semi-automatic that he'd stolen from one of the dead villagers and starts firing wildly into the air.

"STOP!" He screams. "COME BACK!"

But the helicopters continue on. Jack falls to his knees and stares as they disappear behind a copse of trees. He doesn't move, even when Jamie comes up behind him and sets a hand on his shoulder.

"I was right here," Jack murmurs, in shock. Tears roll down his face, but he doesn't seem to notice them. "They didn't see me."

Jamie's heart breaks.


"Jack, why did you come here?" Jamie asks quietly when they stop to take a break.

Jack had gotten them out of there as quickly as he'd been able, after the helicopters left. If it had just been him in that clearing, he wouldn't have cared, but he had with him two children who depend on his ability to defend them in order to survive, so instead of letting himself go into shock, he had forced himself to stand up and move. They've been on the move for a good hour now, wandering aimlessly through the trees and praying that no one is following them.

Jamie's voice is the first sound any of them have made since the clearing, and it startles Jack out of his thoughts.

"Because I was directed to," Jack murmurs. "It was supposed to be a safe zone."

"Then why did they shoot you down?"

Jack gasps, realizing what Jamie is getting at. "Because I took pictures of –oh hell. I need to get back to the crash site!"

"Okay! Let's –"

"No, Jamie. It's too dangerous for you to come along."

"But Jack, you –"

"Your sister," Jack insists. "If something happened to you, who would take care of her?"

"I –"

"Please, kid."

He thinks Jamie must hear something in his voice or read something on his face, because the teenager shuts his mouth and nods, swallowing. It's obvious that he doesn't want to leave Jack, and Jack doesn't exactly what to leave them either, but the American would rather have them safe and alone than with him and dead.

He waits for Jamie's verbal affirmation before he turns to leave. Jack only makes it a few paces before he feels a slight weight barrel into him from behind and a pair of smaller arms wrap around him in a desperate hug.

"I'll miss you," a small voice says –it is the first time he's heard Sophie speak, and her voice is wet with tears. He doesn't look at her or turn around to embrace her, even though he wants to. He reaches down instead, covers her small hands with his and squeezes, trying to impart comfort, but to whom he isn't sure.

Jamie gently pries Sophie off of him and Jack shoots him a grateful smile. Jack is the illusion of protection, but the reality of danger. The children might feel safe with him around, but he is the target -if they follow him for safety, they will surely get caught in the crossfire. No, it is safer to turn them away, no matter how guilty Jack feels about it.

Jamie staggers his sister back and shushes her.

"Good luck," he says, and they turn away.


Pitch rolls his eyes again as he listens to the Snow Queen stumble over the brush and curse. Not for the first time, he questions the wisdom of the General and wonders if there is a way that he can accidentally leave the Snow Queen behind. She is loud and obnoxious and Pitch knows that as long as she is along for the ride, they will never catch the American pilot in time to stop him getting in contact with anyone. As far as anyone else is concerned, the boy is dead, and if the Snow Queen lets Pitch do his job, then maybe the boy will stay dead.

The Queen stumbles again and lets out a string of loud curses. Pitch rounds on her, eyes furious. Pitch had forced the Queen to agree to a no talking rule upon entering the woods; he'd explained that not only did sounds not native to the forest carry, but they would also scare the animals, which would serve as a neat warning system for their quarry.

Jasna rights herself and glares at him. Pitch hisses like a pissed off cat and turns; he can hear her rustling behind him, but he doesn't wait for her to catch up. He only turns back when the rustling abruptly stops and he hears the ominous click of something metallic.

Jasna is standing mid-stride a few feet behind him, a look of horror dawning slowly across her face. Pitch glances down her angled body, the leg that is tilted forward, and realizes how lucky he is that her first reaction is to stop moving instead of trying to get away.

The Snow Queen is standing on a buried landmine.

He looks back up to see that she is staring at him, eyes bulging and mouth moving in silent please for him to help her.

"Help you?" He asks quietly, eyes gleaming in triumph. She shakes her head as he backs away, and when she twitches he pulls out his pistol and trains it between her eyes. "Don't move."

Pitch turns and walks away. Several minutes later he hears a loud boom and grins.


Jack knows he's being followed again, but the awareness comes to him slowly. He is exhausted, utterly spent and barely functioning except for the adrenaline pumping through his veins (he is so very thankful for adrenaline). He's only been running solo for about an hour, so he hopes to high heaven that Jamie and Sophie were able to escape, that the person following him doesn't have friends out looking for them, too. His mind quietly reminds him that Black Robes has friends, lots of friends, an entire army of friends capable of murdering innocent women and children, but he shoves the thought away –that way lies madness and distraction. He's made it this far, he isn't going to go down because he's distracted.

Jack nearly bites through his lip when a sharp crack echoes through the forest, followed by a deep boom. A breeze follows in its heels, blowing Jack's silvery white hair into his eyes as he whirls around toward the noise. A bomb?

It has to be nearby for him to have heard it and then feel it almost immediately after –either that or it was big.

He doesn't waste time trying to figure it out, and at this point it doesn't really matter how close or far or many in number the enemy is. This is probably his last act, his last few hours alive. He honestly doesn't think he'll make it, not anymore. But if there is even a chance that he can preserve the digital recording for friendlier hands to find after he dies, then that is enough.

Jack's thoughts threaten to turn to Aster, who is waiting for him back on the Carl Vinson and probably none the wiser to his situation, but the American forcibly derails them. He doesn't have time, and even if he does, he can't radio in to say his goodbyes in case he gives away his location.

It's not much longer before the trees finally separate and the hill comes into view. A few days ago (a few days? it feels more like years) he and Sandy had crash landed on the north face of the hill, and that is the direction in which he'd fled when the Serbs had tried to gun him down. The hill had been large, but gently rolling and covered in grass and trees. Now he's staring at an almost sheer cliff face and it takes him a moment to realize that yes this is the right place, he's just circled around so that now he's approaching from the south. He hadn't realized when he'd ejected that this is what he'd almost floated into.

Jack spends precious minutes looking for a way up before he decides to circle around to the side, where the cliff is starting to turn to hill. His climb is slow and arduous and his injuries burn with every shift of muscle beneath skin. It feels like it takes an age for him to reach the summit and by the end of it his hands are seizing from constantly gripping onto the rock. He manages to pull himself up and over, panting from the pain and exertion, and has to spend a moment to get his breath back and flex the ache out of his fingers before he can continue.

He emerges on the eastern shore of the frozen lake. To the right is his landing spot, to the left is the cliff face, and about half way in between sits his abandoned seat.

The thing about knowing you're probably going to die is that you become a bit more reckless. He knows he should probably stop and check his surroundings, make sure no one is lying in wait beneath the banks of soft snow, but it's like all he can focus on right now is that seat. The IDEM recording is so close, he feels like he can just reach out and close a fist around it.

There is one thing he checks before he goes running out onto the ice, and that is his weapon. The standard issue Beretta M9 is something he's intimately familiar with; he knows the grooves and dips of it like the back of his own hand, and he counts himself incredibly lucky to still have it after everything he's been through. He'd also managed to pick up a rifle along the way; he checks that too, while he's at it.

"SKS, which means it takes a…7.62x39," he murmurs, wincing as his voice comes out raspy and painful. He rummages around in his pockets but comes up empty –no ammo, then. He checks the chamber and finds a few rounds, but the gun weighs close to ten pounds and it will only hinder him from now on, so he buries it in a snow bank.

All right then… Jack sighs and grits his teeth, takes off across the ice at a crouching half-run. The ice creaks ominously beneath his feet, but he is naturally quick and light, and the ice holds as long as he doesn't linger.

It takes several minutes of terrifying, heart-stopping exposure before he slides in next to the seat. The seat looks dead, half crushed from the fall and fused to the ice by water that had leaked out and refrozen. He runs trembling fingers over it, paying no mind to the sharp metal that bites into them as he searches for the IDEM recordings. He's so focused on finding them that he doesn't realize right away that the seat shouldn't be dead –every seat is equipped with a homing beacon, and his isn't blinking.

"Wh -? Why is this off, why is this…" He trails off as he stares at where the beacon should be flickering at him, but isn't. The only way it can be turned off is by command, and the only way it can be turned back on is manually by the pilots themselves.

He turns away to start looking for the IDEM, but hesitates. Something niggles in the back of his mind, telling him to reactivate the beacon. Someone in the bridge might see it, and there is a possibility that –oh he doesn't want to get his hopes up, because he knows the likelihood of anyone in the bridge seeing the signal after so many days of it being inactive…and would he really want to risk leading the enemy to him?

Oh. Oh!

Jack grins. Maybe that isn't such a bad idea after all.

He rips the cover off and, ignoring the wires spilling out like guts, he rummages around in his pockets, annoyed that he'd been forced to leave his pack back in Hač but thankful he'd had the foresight to stuff some of its contents into the pockets of his jacket.

He pulls things out by the handful and lays them hastily in the snow until he comes across the flashlight he'd kept. Jack unscrews the end and dumps the batteries into his frozen palm, hoping that at least one of them will have the juice he needs to kick-start the homing beacon to life. His stiff fingers fumble with the wires a bit before he manages to thread the red one through enough to bite at it, trying to get the sheath off enough for the metal innards to show.

He presses them against the battery –nothing happens. Jack wants to sob but instead he keeps pressing frantically, fingers getting more and more clumsy until finally the light blinks to life.

"Haha yes!"

He lets out a whoop of triumph and tapes the wires to the battery.


It's been at least an hour; Aster feels the passage of time acutely, but yet at the same time not. It's as though time is splitting around him, and half of him is with Tooth and North in the mess while the other half is still in the bridge, staring at that awful thing on the television that isn't Jack.

He feels hands on his shoulders and somewhere in the distance he can hear a Russian accent rolling over him as Nick tries to console him. It's absolutely bloody awful of him, he thinks, to do this to them. Tooth and North, they have known Jack and Sandy for much longer, they deserve to be the ones being taken care of, not him. And yet here they sit, alone in the mess, trying their best to make Aster feel better. No wonder Jack loves –loved them so much.

"I'm sorry," he says, unable to keep it in any longer. North and Tooth look up at him from across the table, conversation halting mid-sentence. He can't really tell who he's apologizing to –them, for being unable to get himself pulled together, or Jack, for being unable to save him. Tooth must see it on his face; of all the people on the Carl Vinson –aside from perhaps Admiral Pitchiner and Jack –Tooth is the one who understands him the best.

"You have nothing to apologize for, Aster," she says, laying a delicate hand on the forearm that rests on the table between them. "We've all seen what you've done to get Jack back home. This isn't in any way your fault."

Aster sighs out a shuddering breath, turns his hand palm up and grasps hers briefly, needing the contact to anchor him. Because Jack? Jack is gone. Aster will have to live with that fact for the rest of his life. And as much as Tooth tries to convince him that he has no sins to atone for, has done nothing that needs forgiveness, Aster knows that at least part of that guilt and that blame belong to him.

Tooth shoots him a look and opens her mouth and Aster cringes, not able to take any more of her easy forgiveness and acceptance, but he is saved by a deafening commotion on the other side of the mess, near the entrance. Nearly every head turns, but Admiral Pitchiner ignores all of them as her eyes lock onto Aster's.

"Bunnymund!" She barks. Her voice carries through the mostly empty mess, and Aster tries to suppress a wince at the sharpness of her tone as she approaches. He stands to greet her, but she waves him off. "No time! To the bridge, something's come up and I figured you'd want to see."

Aster glances at Nick and Toothiana, silently asking permission for them to join; Pitchiner rolls her eyes but there's a smile on her face when she nods, telling them to hurry along if they're going to come.

He hates himself in that moment. As hard as he tries to tamp it down and lock it away, hope begins to flutter in his chest as they rush through the corridors. He's always been an optimistic person, but this…this is just going to hurt him in the end, because what he's hoping for can never happen.

Sometimes hope can destroy you.

Aster forces himself to shelve his thoughts as they approach the bridge. As an officer, and as the man in charge of this failed mockery of an operation, he cannot afford to show any more weakness or self-doubt, despite the fact that he feels like he's drowning in it. He steels himself and, at Pitchiner's proud nod, strides into the place where he learned of Jack's death like he owns it.

"What's the news?" He asks, relieved that his voice comes out firm and steady.

"Sir, the beacon," Phil says. He sounds confused, and Aster notices for the first time that the atmosphere in the bridge is heavy with uncertainty and an echo of the spark of hope he feels glowing within himself.

"Wh –the beacon? What beacon?"

"The beacon we turned off, the one on Frost's seat… Sir, it's been turned back on."

Aster stares at Phil as the realization of what Phil's implying sinks in. "The –"

Oh god.

"Sir, as you pointed out, the homing beacon on the seats can only be turned on manually once they're turned off."

"It could be a trap," Pitchiner says, but Aster can hear the hope in her voice. She's right, they should be weary, but faced with the very idea that Jack isn't dead, that Jack might be alive and well enough to activate that beacon himself…

Aster meets and holds her gaze. "We will be cautious, but we have to do something. I can't just sit back, not this time."

"I understand, Aster," she replies, her hard gaze softening with understanding. "That's why I'm going to organize your rescue mission with you."

"But what about Lunar? He –"

"He can rot in the cradles of hell for all I care," Pitchiner snarls. "I've had enough. This ends today."

"Oh!" Tooth cries, hands clasped over her mouth. She and Nick look like they are about to burst –Aster knows how they feel.

"You might lose your command," Aster warns, but he can't keep the vicious grin from lifting his lips.

"I'm aware of the risks, Commodore," Pitchiner says. "I think Jack's life is worth the risk, don't you?"

"Always."

"Okay then," she says, as if that is that, just going to risk her job and a possible court martial like it's no big deal. In that moment Aster felt a rush of gratitude for her. "It's your lead, Commodore."

"Yes, Ma'am."


AN: I feel like I need to apologize, because even though this fic will update through its completion, the updates will probably be sporadic at best from now on. I've been dealing with a lot of stress in real life and it's been eating away at my motivation. Luckily there are only 2-3 more chapters left until we're finished, so there's a light at the end of the tunnel! I just ask that you be patient with me as I try to sort things out ^_^