Thank you so much for coming back :)) I hope the 1st chapter was okay, let me know how I can improve in the comments! Anyway, enjoy :)

"They never really believed in you. They don't deserve you anyway Jack. It's okay, I understand."

Jack knew that voice: it was Pitch. Suddenly alert, he jumped up and pointed his staff, parallel to the ground, at where the voice came from, but he could only see a shadow. "You don't understand anything!" He hissed, wildly slinging his staff around.

"Put the staff down Jack. I'm not here to hurt you. I want to help, to be allies. No, not allies: friends. You can trust me Jack, I know you did nothing wrong. I will listen." Pitch's tone changed, now sounding soothing and safe. This was wrong, all wrong. But... it was somewhat enticing.

"No!" Jack screamed, pushing the incredulous thought back down, anger bubbling inside him despite himself. He felt no emotions other than anger right now, how could he when the very person that had taking everything away was here, mocking him?

"I can't trust you!" With a sudden surge of power, he thrust a blast of blue light at Pitch, who barely dodged. Black sand met clear ice, forming a large, terrifying sculpture that rose ten feet up out of the ground. At first, he looked enraged, but then his facial features melted into an emotionless state.

"You can trust me more than you can trust... them."

At this Jack flinched - was Pitch right? Pitch was here now while the Guardians had just abandoned him. Their words echoed around his head, forcing Jack to choke back a scream. He couldn't let Pitch see just how much this hurt him. 'You're a coward Jack.' 'We never should have trusted you" "Leave and don't come back".

Jack fought the desire to give up completely but failed, finally giving in to his emotions, his knees crumbling beneath him. He fell to the ground with a soft thud as shocking insults ravaged through his brain. Suddenly Pitch was behind him, shushing him, cradling him. Finally, someone was there him.

It only took 300 years.

For decades, centuries, he had longed for company, for contact, for a friend. Cold radiated from his frozen body but Pitch stood beside him anyway. So this is what it feels like. Yet... he didn't like it. It felt wrong. Guilt twanged in his heart and realised that this was not right: Pitch was the enemy, not the Guardians. He was not and would never be a friend.

"Leave me alone." Jack croaked as he stood up and shoved Pitch away, abandoning the sleek dark figure. He turned away and walked off, ignoring the Nightmare King, wiping his nose with the back of his sleeve. Snow crunched under his feet as he abandoned the first contact he had had his whole immortal life.

Yet, odly, Pitch didn't seem bothered, like this was the response he had expected. Jack walked further off, threatening to disappear into the white abyss, his white hair camouflaging in the white snow.

Behind him, Pitch rose, trying to persuade Jack to join him, become a team. Together, he said, they would rule the world: more powerful than any Guardians. They would be known by everyone, finally believed in. Jack hesitated before coming to a stop. What he wouldn't give to be believed in. Heck, he'd sell his soul to the devil if he had to. But deep down he knew that even though they would be believed in but they would also be feared, and that was not what Jack wanted. Ignoring Pitch, he walked off, repeating to him "Leave me alone.".

Pitch fell silent as Jack walked off, then defiantly smirked. A cold laugh erupted from his mouth as he shouted: "You want to be alone, fine. But first..."

Suddenly Jack heard a pained chirp, sounding awfully like... "Baby Tooth! Let her go!"

"The staff Jack! You have a habit of interfering where you are not wanted. If you won't fight by my side then you won't fight at all." Jack looked unsure. "Give me the staff and I'll let her go." Pitch bargained, his golden eyes glistening with mischief. Baby Tooth shook her head as Pitch squeezed tighter, causing her to painfully chirp. Jack didn't know what to do, what would he do without his staff? He hadn't let it out of his sight for 317 years. He knew every curve, every crevice, every crack. His hand felt empty without it but...but Baby Tooth needed his help and he couldn't stand by and watch her be hurt in his behalf. Twisting it in his hands he painstakingly handed it to Pitch, the ice instantly disappearing and soon as it came into contact with his ashen skin, leaving the staff sinister and black. Leaving Jack defenceless.

"Alright, now let her go." Jack said defiantly, as if he hadn't just given up the one thing that mattered the most to him.

"No," Pitch blaintedly said, "you said you wanted to be alone, so be alone." Obvious shock swam through Jack's eyes, before they turned a hard steel. His lips stretched into a sinister smile as he registered the emotion, the fear in Jack's eyes.

"Ow!" Baby Tooth smiled triumphantly as she dug her sharp beak into the Nightmare King's finger, drawing dark black blood. Pitch hurtled Baby Tooth as far as he could, smiling devilishly at the sound of a small 'thump' as Baby Tooth hit the rock and fell into the abyss below.

"NO!!"

The tall ashen man seemed to grow as Jack turned around to face him, ready to fight. His knuckles whitened as he instinctively went to grab his staff, but it was no longer there. Instead. Pitch held it high above his slender face, a hand curled around each end. Without warning, he slammed it down, hard, onto his knee, splitting it in two with a painful crack, sending an agonisingly gut-wrenching feeling in his stomach, as if it were being twisted and torn out from the inside. His vision swam and his head rocked back and forth almost like he were on a boat. Choking and gasping for air, black dots started to block his vision and he felt as if the world was spinning beneath him.

Pitch smirked and cackled like the devil as Jack felt a scream being ripped out from his throat. Cold shivers ran up and down his spine, but not the cold he was used to, no, this was painful, dark cold, threatening to eat him up from the inside, threatening to consume him whole. He wailed in agony as he felt like his stomach was being ripped out. Suddenly he found himself on all fours on the floor, wet snow and ice under his hands. Just the sight of it sent Pitch into hysterics. How easy it was to defeat him! He would never forget the blood-curtling scream that echoed around the icy wasteland as Jack gripped his stomach in agony, delicious fear radiating off every ounce of the boy.

"How weak. How... pathetic."

Jack barely registered the words that had just been spoken to him. His vision was fuzzy, his head was spinning and everything sounded muffled. Yet, he could not give in to Pitch, that was exactly what he wanted. He felt like vomiting but he defiantly stood up, clutching his stomach, staring Pitch dead in the eye. He wouldn't let him take the remnants of his pride.

Pitch stopped laughing at the outrageous action Jack had just taken. How dare he?! He raised his arms above his head and evil, black snake-looking tendrils crept out from under his cloak. They flew towards Jack, who was still glaring at Pitch. Suddenly, with an agonisingly painful jerk, they stabbed him, straight through his frozen heart, lifting him viciously into the air, his feet hovering just off the ground.

They did not kill him, they were not meant to kill him, but Jack felt pain. Immense, unbearable pain. Black spots dotted his vision for the second time as the vile, pointy tendrils slowly and painfully dragged out of his body and crept back towards Pitch's cloak, uncaringly dropping the winter spirit to the floor. He lay sprawled, unable to move, barely able to breathe. Jack could feel himself beginning to lose consciousness, but not before he saw a huge cloud of black sand fly towards him, knocking him back with utter force and sending him into the abyss of snow below.

The weightless feeling of flying, falling, falling was all he felt, until his head collided with a hard rock and he landed with a loud 'thump' on the floor. No words were spoken but a small cackle could be heard from above, along with a small object falling to the floor. His broken staff clattered to the ground next to him but he did not have the energy nor the might to reach for it. He felt broken and afraid.

Screams rang in his ears and Jack wondered if they were his own. Right now, he didn't know and he didn't care. Blood dripped down from the back of his head, falling from the wound like water leaking out of a broken porcelain vase. With every passing second it became more difficult to breathe: his breathing was slowing despite his desperate gasps for air.

His lungs screamed for oxygen as Jack felt himself consumed by an unforgivable and unyielding darkness. The ache in his body became too much to bear and Jack could no longer withstand the pain. Just give in, a voice in his mind said to him. The voice became louder and louder until it was too hard to ignore and as he lay there, weak and frail, darkness embraced him like a long-lost brother.

...

Darkness surrounded him when he woke. This wasn't unusual but, for some reason, he was scared. He didn't know how long he had been unconscious for but as soon as he came to a throbbing pain flared in his head and his heart burned with a pain like he had never experienced before. He could not move at all but through the corner of his eye he saw Baby Tooth hovering over him, chirping wildly, worry clear in her eyes.

Why was he here? Where was here? He struggled to remember until images of his encounter with Pitch ransacked his brain.

"G..get Tooth." was all Jack managed to whisper before his heart and head hurt too much to bear and he fell into the realm of dreamless sleep again

...

Back at Santoff Clausen, Tooth and North were filled with regret. Had they acted too harshly? They had acted irrationally because of their immediate feelings, but deep down they both knew that Jack was not in the wrong.

"We should look for him." They both said at the same time, looking ashamed. It had been nearly three, and they had had no contact from Jack at all. There had been no blizzards, no storms, no snow anywhere, not even a single snowflake. North was worried immensely by this. From... past experiences, he knew that Jack let out his feelings using his power. He was deep in thought as to what could have happened to him when he heard Tooth's feathers rustle.

"Did you hear that?" She asked North, who shook his head, confused. The only sound he had heard was Tooth herself. "I-" he started before the fairy hushed him into silence. She had heard the noise again. This time, it was more clear, and she could make out that it was a high pitched chirping sound, which could only be coming from one thing... Baby Tooth! Tooth had been worried sick - Baby Tooth was the only one who had escaped Pitch's grasp when he attacked Tooth Palace but she had been missing for longer than Jack now.

The hummingbird-hybrid was pulled out of her thoughts by another chirp. It sounded distressed and Tooth immediately knew something was very wrong. She carefully studied Baby Tooth's calls to determine where they were coming from; she was far away, very far away, the opposite end of the world in fact. Why would she be there? Tooth pondered to herself when a vision of Baby Tooth's whereabouts suddenly came to her.

She could now clearly see Baby Tooth, freezing among a pile of snow. At first, she could see nothing but white abyss around her until she noticed a familiar blue hoodie half-buried under more snow. No... it couldn't be - Jack! Toothiana wasn't sure if he was sleeping or unconscious but he was bleeding badly from his head and, though his eyes were shut, pain and fear were obvious emotions on his face. His skin looked paler than normal and his lips held a light blue tint. His eyes were scrunched shut, soft flakes of snow covering his eyelashes.

"North, get your sleigh and your snow globe straight away!" Tooth demanded, voice cracking as she saw Jack Frost looking the way he did. North did not argue and immediately rushed to his workshop, yelling orders at Yetis on the way.

Tooth fluttered about nervously, unsure of what to do with herself. What was wrong with Jack? Why was he there and why was he injured? Only one thought came to her head.

This was all their fault.