Author's Note: I admit, this chapter wasn't going to exist. I was going to go straight from the attack on the palace to teeth collecting and then tons of drama! But this inbetween chapter had to come out first. I hope you guys find it exciting as I had a lot of fun writing it. I admit that I put off the teeth collecting since we all know what sad parts follow that. I felt sad chapter that's coming needed the fun of teeth collecting first, so thus you have this chapter for now. As for the fallout with the Guardians confronting Jack about Pitch.. well.. I won't tell you when that's coming. I have to ask you though.. Who do you think will confront either Jack or Lillian about it first?

As for reviews.. CrossoverJunkie, the backstory info is great, but your posts are so long now that they're getting cut off. I think I'll have to visit Wikipedia or something if I want to find out more. :) But thank you anyway!

Now onto the chapter!

Chapter Eighteen: Narrow Escape

The Nightmare holding Lillian entered Pitch's globe room via the darkest shadows in the corner. Its eyes glowed with malicious glee as it tossed its head, shaking poor Lillian around by the hood of her cloak.

Lillian gave a strangled shriek as she was being strangled by her cloak. She frantically scrabbled at her cloak where it was tied around her shoulders and then remembered that it was actually tied and therefore very easy to take off.

Grabbing one end of the bow that tied her cloak on, she gave a tug and suddenly tumbled to the ground as she was freed from her cloak. She coughed and gasped for air as she massaged her throat, where the ribbon had been digging in since the Nightmare had been holding her.

She stood after a moment and staggered slightly. She looked around in confusion as she noticed there were now several large birdcages hanging from the ceiling and there were now hundreds of tweeting little fairies in the cages.

As she was staring curiously at the cages, she suddenly heard a very loud snort from the Nightmare which seemed much closer to her than before. Her eyes widened as the Nightmare seemed to glare at her. Its mouth was now free of her cloak, it having tossed the useless cloth aside once it realized that it couldn't use the cloth to frighten and strangle the child it had been holding.

Lillian started to back away as she stared in fright at the Nightmare when it suddenly lashed out at her. Lillian cried out as the Nightmare actually bit her on her arm. She wrenched her arm away from the surprisingly sharp teeth to see that she now had a small but terrible looking gash on her arm.

Tears filled her eyes as she covered the wound with her hand. She had to get out of here! She turned around to run away, but soon found herself grabbed by the back of her dress.

Before she could even think of trying to get away she found herself tossed into the last empty cage. She whimpered as she hit the metal floor of the cage roughly. She lay in a heap at the bottom of the cage as she heard the door slam close.

She sniffled as she sat up a bit and looked at her wound again. It had brushed up against the rough black sand of the horse when she wrenched her arm away from it. She didn't see any of the sand in her wound now though.

She brushed her tears away and carefully tore a long strip of cloth from the bottom of her dress and wrapped up her wound, tying it off rather awkwardly. She looked around to find that several of the fairies were either shaking their tiny fists at the Nightmare that was still lingering in the room (since Lillian was so afraid), or looking at her with worry and sympathy on their faces.

"I-I'm ok," she told them quietly.

She couldn't help but wonder as she looked down at Nightmare though.. Was locking her up the horse's idea or Pitch's?


Bunny's eyes narrowed as he watched Jack and Pitch. They were far enough away and were talking quietly enough that North, Tooth and Sandy couldn't quite hear what they were talking about. But Bunny's long ears weren't just for decoration and thanks to that, he had excellent hearing.

And he hadn't liked what he heard. Not at all.

Jack stared at Pitch, his mind frozen. That wasn't what he expected Pitch to say at all.

Pitch gave Jack a look, it was almost as if Pitch was going into adult mode again and giving Jack that Look that said "Do Not Follow Me!" Pitch gave a parting smirk at the Guardians as he disappeared into the shadows.

Jack took a deep breath to calm himself and walked back over by the Guardians. He could see Tooth had picked herself back up from the floor but was looking so very un-Toothlike and still.

"..I.. I'm sorry about the fairies," Jack offered quietly.

"You should've seen them, they put up such a fight," Tooth said with a ghost of a smile.

The little fairy that had been rescued by Jack and fawned over by Tooth earlier flew over by Jack and settled down onto his shoulder.

Jack gave the fairy a small smile.

"Hey little Baby Tooth," he said, trying to sound cheerful, but unable to. Not with Lillian gone and things so wrong now.

Baby Tooth chirped happily in Jack's ear at that. She had a name! A cute one too!

She flew up and zipped around Jack's head in a circle happily before settling back down in the hood of Jack's hoodie.

Tooth looked around at her very empty palace in dismay.

Jack noticed and tried to offer a few words of comfort.

"I'm sorry about your teeth too," he said sincerely to her.

Tooth shook her head sadly.

"It wasn't just the teeth, it was the memories that they contained."

Jack looked puzzled by this.

"Memories?"

Tooth nodded.

"The Memories of Childhood. Each baby tooth holds a memory from that child's childhood. When the child needs to remember it, the fairies and I help them out." she explained. "We have everyone's memories. Yours and Lillian's too."

"O-our memories?" Jack stuttered.

"Of course!" Tooth said, perking up a little. "From before you were chosen to be Jack Frost and Lillian, the spirit of Spring."

Jack looked at her in stunned disbelief.

"B-but I wasn't anyone before I was Jack Frost," Jack said his eyes widening. "And Lillian never said anything about having a life before she met - " Jack hastily paused and changed what he was going to say as he realized he was going to say something about Pitch, "Before she became a spring spirit."

"Of course you two were someone before you became spirits!" Tooth said in surprise. "We all were someone before we were chosen."

"Is true!" North boomed out as he joined the conversation. "Why I remember Bunny - "

Bunny glared at North.

"You said you weren't goin' to say anythin' about that!"

Tooth cried out as a few more feathers disappeared from her.

"What is it?!" Jack said as he looked concerned.

"The children," Tooth cried out in dismay. "They don't believe!"

"You're going to disappear?" Jack asked her, horrified.

"NO!" North cried out. "No! Wait.. think.. think.. think... YES!" he said as he did a jig, swinging his swords around and nearly beheading poor Bunny. "IDEA! We collect teeth!"

"Oy!" Bunny said, "Watch it!"

"..Us?" Jack asked a little skeptically.

"Yes!" North said with a proud smile. "We collect teeth and children believe! Is simple as pie, no? And Jack, if you help us, we get your memories back. Yours and Lillian's."

At this, a determined look entered Jack's eyes.

"First we get Lillian back," he said. "Then we get the teeth."

"As disappointin' as that is, I think we need ta get the teeth first," Bunny said with a meaningful look at Jack.

Jack flinched a little and his eyes widened. Had he heard?!

"But-!" Jack tried to argue, but Sandy cut him off with a golden image of a sleigh appearing over his head.

"Sandy is right," North said. "Whatever we do, first we must go in sleigh."


While Pitch was finishing his discussion with the Guardians, Lillian was sitting in the cage sadly. She wiped some more tears away from her face as she suddenly felt like the frightened six year old she had been when she first met Pitch.

She almost wished Pitch was there, even if he was acting strangely. But the doubt of not knowing whether it was Pitch who wanted her in the cage or not made her shoulders slump. This place, Pitch's lair, had been her home for so long now. And here she was, hurt and trapped in a large birdcage with an evil black horse glaring up at her.

She frowned at the horse. She didn't like it. It was strange and she realized that she felt more frightened when it was around. She was frightened of it, but she noticed that for no reason whatsoever she felt more afraid than she really should have been.

As she realized this, her bracelet glowed a little as her turbulent emotions were setting off her spring powers a little. The glowing startled her and she stared down at her bracelet.

Then a grin started to creep onto her face as she remembered her spring powers. She looked back down at the black horse and now it was her turn to give it a look of malicious glee.

Before the Nightmare knew what was happening, several thick, green vines grew up from the stone floor and wrapped around it, essentially pinning it down to the ground.

Remembering the fairy tale of Jack and the Beanstalk, Lillian had a very thick vine sprout up from the ground directly under her cage. She had intended to have it go to the cage door and yank it open, but she hadn't gauged the distance properly and instead the vine knocked the cage off its hook and it tumbled to the ground.

Lillian cried out as she felt like one of the balls in a pinball machine. She sat up as the cage was now on the ground and knew she'd definitely be bruised. She noticed however, that the fall had jarred the cage door open. So she climbed out of the cage and looked up at all the others that housed the Tooth Fairy's helpers.

She furrowed her brow as she realized that there were simply too many of them and she didn't know when Pitch would be coming back.

"Don't worry, I'll get help." she told them as they began to chirp in earnest as she ran out of the room.

She raced into her cave-room and navigated around the clutter with practiced ease. Pitch hadn't noticed, but Lillian's room had started getting messy at around the time she would have been a teenager.

Even though she was much older now, she still hadn't bothered tidying up. Pitch had never said anything as he was too busy, and a part of her had secretly wanted Pitch to notice and scold her like a normal parent would.

This had never happened though, so Lillian's room still looked like a small tornado hit it.

She grabbed up an old book bag and began to unceremoniously stuff some of her most precious possessions in it. The book of fairy tales went in as well as a few books she had been meaning to read and a few other odds and ends.

Then she went over to her little closet and folded a few of her colorful dresses, carefully leaving her once favorite black dress behind. She tucked those into her bag and stuffed an extra cloak on top.

With one last look around her room, she realized what she was doing. She was leaving her home.. She shook her head. No. It wasn't her home anymore.

She knew that she couldn't stay here while Pitch was acting this way. As she heard Pitch arrive in the globe room, her bracelet glowed as she summed her Giant Flower of Doom.

Pitch's footsteps could be heard coming towards her room, but it was too late. The flower gobbled her up and as Pitch looked in the doorway, he saw the flower shrink back down into the ground and disappear.

He clenched his hands into fists as he stared at the spot that his Lillian had been.

She was gone.


Jack and the Guardians (or rather, Jack and Bunny) were in the sleigh, arguing about the destination. North had a snow globe out, but didn't seem to know exactly where they should go as he glanced back at his passengers uncertainly.

"We have to rescue Lillian!" Jack shouted at Bunny, as it began to snow a little unnaturally in the usually warm climate surrounding Tooth's Palace.

"We gotta get the teeth! And we don't know where the anklebiter is!" Bunny shouted right back.

Sandy gave Tooth a look as they watched the pair argue. The two were so intent on their argument in fact, that they failed to notice that right in the middle of the sleigh, a spot began to glow.

"What's more important?!" Jack glared at Bunny. "Lillian's a kid! Don't you protect ALL children?!"

Bunny flinched slightly at this accusation and was about to reply, when suddenly a really big tulip grew right out of the metal of the sleigh.

The Guardians all stared at this normally impossible phenomenon, but Jack looked relieved. Then he realized the sleigh wasn't that big and how high up in the air they were.

"Uh, guys - " Jack said, trying to explain, but it was too late.

There was a loud 'PATOOEY!' and suddenly Lillian was thrown from the flower, right over their heads and into the open air.

She started to scream, but Sandy very calmly stepped up to the edge of the sleigh and right over the edge.

A few moments later, he flew up with Lillian sitting on his golden cloud.

"Lillian!" Jack cried out happily.

A very windswept and ragged Lillian gave him a half-smile.

"Hey, Jack," she quietly said back.

"Now we get teeth!" North shouted as he said the name of a country to the globe and tossed it into the air in front of them.

Before anything more could be said to the Child of Spring, the sleigh zipped through the portal and vanished.


Author's Note: Bet you didn't see that coming! Or.. maybe you did, but I bet you didn't expect Lillian to kick a Nightmare's butt and appear right on the sleigh. :) There is a teeny tiny little plot point in there that will come back later to bring up major problems, so you get bonus points if you can figure out what that is exactly and what's going to happen. The next chapter will feature the Guardians being all silly as they collect teeth, and maybe some bonding? Or at least a lack of suspicious glares! I'm not sure when the next chapter will be up, so I'll tentatively say by at LEAST next weekend. But don't hold me to that! As always, if you have any suggestions or ideas for the plot, don't hesitate to speak up! Also, if you have any ideas on other spirits to include later (for when the movie part has concluded and we get right into what happens after that) let me know too. Remember, not all plot I've thought up is set in stone and is subject to change, so you guys can still influence what's happening in the story. Anyway, until next time!