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Jack sighed in his sleep, and rolled over to his side. Bunny and Tooth watched, holding their breaths, not wanting to disturb the spirit's rest.

It was dawn in the Warren, and the tunnels were filling with the warming sunlight. The hours the three guardians had spent tidying up had been worth it- the Warren now looked unreal, like a painting, instead of looking like a littered wasteland. Multicoloured eggs were now running across the grass eagerly, covered in intricate patterns from the flowers and streams that lay hidden amongst the trees. The rivers and lakes themselves had been cleared of all the dirt and black sand contaminating them and now had been reverted back to there usual colours.

Easter was still quite a long way away, but Bunny didn't have the whole year to prepare like he usually did; he knew he should be frantic, working overtime to get it done- after all, this would have to be the best Easter to date to win back believers- but instead he was watching Jack Frost sleep in the grass best to him, under an oak tree.

"I'm glad he's finally getting some rest." Tooth whispered, looking fondly at the spirit. Bunny nodded.

"Yeah…we had a chat about it last night, actually." Bunny watched the sun as it slowly rose above the hills, still not quite believing that he was back in his home, getting ready for Easter. Something that he had almost forgot how to do.

"You did? What happened?" Tooth asked, tilting her head. "I knew that he had a problem with sleeping…"

"Yeah, it was pretty bad- worse than I thought, actually." Bunny admitted, tearing his eyes away from the landscape. "I knew there was somethin' botherin' him when he didn't go to sleep when I suggested it earlier, before you arrived. So I waited to see if he would go to sleep after we cleaned up my Warren, and my hunch was righ'"

"Did he say why he didn't want to sleep?" Tooth asked. The was a period of silence where only Jack's steady breathing was heard. The Pooka felt a small smile twitch on his face as he watched the spirit curl up into a impossibly small ball.

"It took a while to coax it outta him." Bunny's smile dropped, thinking back to his last conversation with the spirit. "But he eventually said it. He was scared, Tooth." He sighed, absentmindedly ruffling Jack's hair. The spirit muttered something unknown before moving back into sleep mode.

"He was scared of sleeping?" Tooth edged closer to Bunny, keeping her eyes locked on the spirit. "Has he been having nightmares?"

"Not nightmares." The Pooka cut in, before the fairy started swearing revenge on Pitch. Which is what they all wanted to do, but not with a sleeping Jack Frost beside them. "He was scared tha' he wasn't gonna wake up again, or when he did wake up it would be too late." Tooth's eyes widened, shining with tears.

"I never realised…I should've known about this-"

"Don't beat ya self up abou' it." Bunny put a reassuring paw on her shoulder. "I didn't know myself, and I thought I was gettin' good at figuring him out."

"But there's always one more layer to him, isn't there?" Tooth said, laughing slightly.

"Always."

"He doesn't know how special he is, does he? To the world. To us." Tooth whispered as the spirit stirred slightly. For one minute, it looked like they had woken him, but then he curled up in his ball again, cutting himself off from the outside world.

"He never has." Bunny whispered back. "Look what he has done for us. He's saved our lives. And even before then, he did something greater; he brought us all together." Tooth nodded, smiling.

"Do you remember when I would only see you a few times a year? Sometimes it was only once." She said. Bunny laughed quietly- it seemed so natural for them to visit at least once every two days, he forgot how it used to be.

"Yeah…I think I barely saw North at all. Or Sandy. Or you, for that matter." He recalled. "I was always in my Warren."

"I forgot you did that." Tooth admitted, laughing with the Pooka as quietly as she could. "You would spent 364 days in there most of the time." They laughed together, startling Jack out of his sleep. The spirit woke up with a start, blearily looking around with sleep-glazed eyes.

"Wha?" He muttered as Tooth and Bunny looked at each other guiltily.

"Sorry we woke you, Sweettooth." Tooth apologised; Jack, now fully awake, smiled.

"It's fine…I probably should've been awake by now anyway…" Raven, who had been dozing in the sun earlier, now came trotting over to the small group, whining softly in greeting.

"'Bout time you showed up." Jack said, sitting up and stroking the horse.

"Ya know, tha' horse ain't so bad once ya get used to it." Bunny said as Raven settled down beside Jack, resting his head on his knee.

"He's kinda cute." Tooth added, smiling at the stallion.

—

If Sandy could speak now, he would probably be singing to himself. Not a loud song, but a soft one that could pass off as a hum.

If he could sing, then it would move his focus away from his darkening thoughts. It would make the dark cell seem less suffocating, and more…well, not homey, but manageable. Singing would make the disaster he was trapped in better.

But the problem was, if he could sing, he would probably spent a good few years deciding a song, which didn't help. Time was the only thing he had to himself here, in this cell walked with black sand. Maybe he could choose a song.

Or maybe he could just talk to himself. Sandy sometimes wondered what his voice would sound like if he had a voice. He wondered whether it would be deep, or gravelly or high or…he could go on forever. If he could talk to himself then he could talk things out and sort his scrambled thoughts. Sandy had heard Jack do it so many times before-

Sandy's thoughts cut off painfully. Thinking of the spirit was the one thing he had thought about the least during the seventy years he was trapped. It sounded cruel and heartless to admit it but…he never wanted to go back to those painful memories.

Out of his entire history, Sandy had never wished he could speak more then at that moment. The moment where Jack Frost fell to the ground, the sword dug deep into his chest. As he gasped, he wanted to reassure him that everything would turn out fine, like it always did. As he screamed Sandy wanted to comfort him, whisper calming words as he sat beside him. As his eyes glazed over and fluttered shut, Sandy wanted to ask him to wake up, to open his eyes, to stay alive. But instead he was forced to stay silent.

As the shrieks of excited nightmares grew louder, Sandy closed his eyes, pretending that he could hear himself humming into the darkness steadily, blocking out the chaos around him.

Suddenly, just as the noise outside reached a new level, one of the walls got blasted apart, scattering stones onto the sandman. Sandy barely noticed, however, as the creature that caused it rose to its full hight. His eyes widened as he took in each red eye, each spoke on its tail, each long, finger like fang. The creature stared at him for a few seconds before hiding into the shadows behind him. Every now and then, Sandy could see two red slits blink before disappearing again as if it was…waiting.

But for what?

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