Author's Note: I knooow I said this chapter would have the action in it, but I want to do it justice. So here is a bit of a filler chapter that shows you a bit of everyone. I want to thank the couple of reviewers who gave me multiple reviews as they read the story. I'm glad you guys like it! I also want to thank my other reviewers and I promise there's more action in the next chapter. This is just a small chapter to show you I'm still alive and I haven't given up on the story. :) In fact, I reread my "Time and Time Again" interlude and can't wait for the next part of the story. I promise not to rush this to get to it though.
Now, without further ado!
Chapter Fifty-Four: Pitch's Realization
Lillian woke up in the middle of the night with thoughts of Halloween swirling around in her mind. Which was pretty strange now that she thought of it, since it was still late spring and not quite summer.. right?
As she rubbed her eyes sleepily, she saw Baby Tooth looking at her inquisitively, holding Jamie's former loose tooth. She grinned at Baby Tooth. Their plan had worked!
Baby Tooth started to chirp excitedly, but Lillian quickly shushed her while glancing at Jamie's sleeping form. She bit her lip when she saw that he looked cold. The ground had been lightly dusted with snow except for where they were, since Lillian had been able to use her powers a little to at least keep the snow away from their little area.
In a whisper, Lillian hurriedly explained their situation to Baby Tooth and how they needed a lift back home. Baby Tooth gave them a rather stern look as Lillian finished up her explanation.
Lillian looked sheepish at that.
"Look, we really have to get out of here! It's cold and I have to go find Jack."
Baby Tooth nodded as she saw that Lillian and Jamie were both shivering.
Baby Tooth chirped that she would hurry as fast as she could, before she flew off.
Pitch was beyond worried. He had been very worried about Jack's whereabouts ever since they had found out that Jack and gone missing after visiting Jasper's forest. And now there were reports all over the world of even more strange weather. It was beyond frustrating.
Not to mention, he had just gone in to check on Lillian and now she was missing too! He couldn't believe she had managed to sneak away when North had placed yeti guards at her door.
He stomped his feet as he paced the floor, ignoring his duties yet again as he glared at the globe.
Then he paused and looked at the globe.
The globe that held the belief of every child in the world.. Including two child spirits.
He almost smacked his forehead in disbelief.
They had all forgotten that Jack and Lillian showed up on the globe as glowing blue lights.
Deciding to yell at North later for not thinking of this, Pitch hastily began searching the globe.
He saw one blue light that was growing dimmer as it seemed to be moving rapidly across North America. With how fast it was traveling, that had to be Jack.
But where was Lillian?
Pitch searched all over the globe, and finally found her in a remote corner. Her light was a bright blue and it was right next to a very bright, very normal light.
This didn't make any sense. Why would Lillian be in such a remote area with a child?
He sighed as he looked from one blue light to the other. With Jack moving so fast, it would be hard to catch up to him.
He looked at where Lillian's blue light was and paused. It seemed like such a random place to be, and yet..
His eyes widened as he realized just exactly where she was.
No..! It couldn't be!
He suddenly took off running for the shadow he usually used when traveling to the globe room at North's, only to practically run into Tooth as she zoomed in from a window.
"Whoa!" Tooth exclaimed as she narrowly avoided a collision, but smiled as she saw Pitch. Baby Tooth was perched on her shoulder, looking very smug.
"Get out of my way!" Pitch snarled at Tooth. "I have to get to Lillian now."
Tooth held up her hands in a placating gesture.
"Baby Tooth just told me where Lillian and Jamie are. We could get the others and - "
Pitch just gave her a look at this.
"There isn't any time! She is in Gethen's territory and it's best to get to her before he.." Pitch trailed off as what Tooth had said sunk in. "Wait.. Did you say Jamie?"
Mother Nature paced in her palace as she felt the balance of nature shift, as Jack's powers put the weather into even more chaos than before. The Earth couldn't take much more of this.
As she passed a window a stray shaft of moonlight shone right into her pocket, briefly illuminating the bracelet that was still there. She had been meaning to give it back to Lillian, but hadn't found the time. Now with all the weather troubles, it was the last thing on her mind.
The bracelet sparkled in the moonlight. It started to glow a little more brightly as the light on it intensified, and then quick as a wink, it was gone.
Mother Nature continued her pacing, none the wiser.
Jack flew high over California as the clouds gathered and it began snowing. He glanced down at the ground guiltily, knowing he was definitely out of season and knowing that August could show up at any moment to give him a piece of his mind.
But all he could think about was getting as far away from Burgess as he could. And it's not like he had a choice!
He bit his lip as he looked at his poor, abused staff. He could already tell that it wasn't the same as it used to be. The newer part had more kick and wanted to use more power, but the weakened part protested this and seemed about ready break. It resulted in wild power spikes that he could hardly control. It was a miracle he hadn't accidentally frozen Gethen's lair when he was shooting his powers at the wall to test out his staff.
This made it very difficult for him to create storms. He was trying to just lower the temperature enough to make it snow. A lighter snow, just enough to appease Gethen but not enough to cause any serious damage.
What was actually happening, was his staff was almost completely beyond his control and when he told it to make it snow lightly, it had a huge power spike and the biggest blizzard California had ever seen was now gearing up. The clouds were very dark and ominous and Jack was kinda freaking out since he had no idea on how to stop it.
He was in serious trouble.
Lillian was sitting on the ground shivering when an extremely worried Pitch came racing out of a shadow. He had his scythe out and looked ready to slice anything out of the ordinary in half.
A freaked out Tooth came flying out of the shadow after Pitch, exclaiming how absolutely horrible that was and why couldn't he have just waited for North and Bunny..!
Lillian's eyes widened as she saw Pitch and Tooth. She had expected Baby Tooth to get Tooth, but not Pitch!
Pitch took one look around and let his scythe disappear back into the shadows as he marched over to Lillian and Jamie.
"Young lady, you have a lot of explaining to do!" Pitch said in his no-nonsense 'you are SO grounded' voice.
Lillian flinched a little at his tone and looked down.
"Um.." was all she could think to say.
All the noise woke Jamie up and he rubbed his eyes sleepily as he shivered from the cold.
"..Wha's.. happening..?" he asked as he saw Tooth and then Pitch. He gave them a sleepy smile as Baby Tooth waved from her perch on Tooth's shoulder.
Tooth gave a soft 'Awww' and scooped Jamie up into her arms.
"Good news!" she said happily to him, trying to ignore Pitch's scolding. "We're taking you home."
Jamie might have felt a little weird about being carried around like a baby by the Tooth Fairy, but he was still pretty tired. He gave her a mumbled thanks and laid his head down on her shoulder.
Tooth looked over to see Pitch giving a very guilty looking Lillian the third degree. She felt a little sorry for Lillian, even if she had snuck out.
"But - " Lillian tried to interrupt again, for the third time.
"No buts!" Pitch exclaimed. "We are going home, or at least back to the Pole, and that's - "
"Ahem!" Tooth interrupted. "Before we do that, can we take Jamie home? Your way of traveling is a bit.. frightening.. but it is the fastest option we have right now."
She finished by giving Pitch a look, because hello snow globes! And all they had to do was wait for North and Bunny. But nooo. Someone was too impatient.
With an impatient huff, Pitch hauled Lillian up to her feet and grabbed a hold of her hand firmly, before dragging her off into a shadow, indicating that Tooth should follow.
Tooth was grateful that Jamie had somehow managed to fall asleep while Pitch was shouting, and would miss out in this nightmare-inducing experience. How could Pitch travel like this?
With a shudder, Tooth followed after.
No one noticed as they all appeared in Jamie's bedroom that a stray shaft of moonlight shone brightly through the window onto Lillian's wrist. Lillian might have noticed the sudden reappearance of her bracelet, but she was still upset from Pitch's scolding and didn't take any notice of it.
After Tooth tucked Jamie into bed, she turned to Pitch to say she could find her own way back. Besides, she still had a lot of work to do.
Pitch was already hauling Lillian off to a shadow to take her back to the Pole, when she dug her feet in and refused to walk any further.
"Wait!" she exclaimed loudly. "Jack's sprites!"
Author's Note: Yeaaah, as I was writing this chapter I suddenly found a GIANT plot hole and was like.. "WHYYYY?!" so, since Pitch is the one who always catches these things and chalks it up to "Guardians?! What good are they!", I had him find it and fix it. And yes, Manny did steal Lillian's bracelet from Mother Nature and he gave it back to Lillian. Don't worry, Mother Nature will still have a talk with Jack and Lillian later, but she really needed her bracelet back and now is definitely not the time for serious talks.
I am wondering what to do with Gethen as a character though. Should he be redeemed eventually? Or is he beyond hope? Hmm. I also hope that I had Pitch in the right spot. I admit that I haven't had him in recent chapters, so I had a hard time finding out what he was doing. All I could come up with was that he was probably still at the Pole, freaking out.
Anywho, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter even though it is rather short, in comparison to longer updates. I'll try to have to the next chapter be longer. I have no clue when it will be out, but I am aiming for before the year is over.
