Finally got an idea for another story, thanks oddly enough to TV Tropes. I was reading up on different phobias because I have an intense fear of blood. I found the fear of flight, and I started wondering how bad it would be if Jack became afraid of flying for a bit. It's kind of something he does a lot.

Phobias tend to suck that way. Mine kept me from really wanting to be a doctor. But I'm glad I decided to pursue art instead. But now I work in the wood shop and with a lot of other knives and things. I get cut (or ground into, don't ask) on a regular enough basis, so hemophobia sucks hard still. I feel like Jack, having defeated fear in the movie, would be a little ashamed of this new fear.

Thank you all so much for the continued support and readership! There are some really sweet reviews I haven't answered yet ugh I'm a terrible person! I hope you guy like this! It's going to be a bit of longer story arc type thing :D


Warm climates are the natural enemy of most things to do with ice. Unfortunately for Jack Frost, this was also true for him. But this time, it was dangerous for him in a way he had not expected.

He was not particularly happy to begin with, before disaster struck. Toothiana's fairies were molting. It wasn't a process that occurred very often, only once every hundred years, but it put at least some of the fairies out of commission for a few nights. So Tooth needed help, and since it was summer in the Northern hemisphere and Jack wasn't quite as busy (with snow days not being a very common practice in the Southern hemisphere) he stepped in to help out.

The only problem was that it was summer in the Northern hemisphere. Which meant the things that came with summer. Like heat. And, namely, thunderstorms. Jack didn't have much experience with those. Winter was cold, and thunderstorms liked heat. They needed the shift in barometric pressure or whatever it was the weather men on those fancy TV thingamajigs said. Jack didn't really like TV. It required sitting, for one thing. He wasn't fond of sitting. But TV was also some newfangled technology that wasn't even quite one hundred years old yet. And it was already going out of style, replaced by some smaller shiny boxes called computers and even tinier ones called 'sell phones', whatever that meant. He had been right about TV being some dumb fad.

Speaking of TVs, that was the only place he had ever actually seen close pictures of lightning. But some of it seemed pretty close now. And he wasn't very comfortable with it. He was on his last stop, Burgess, thankfully, so at least he was very familiar with the territory he was flying over.

But he wasn't familiar with the strange quality of the wind. The best way he could think to describe it was 'lost it's freaking mind'. It would be a bit calm for a minute, then extremely still, then it would rush at him with tremendous force. It was much more difficult to ride than the winter winds he was accustomed to. It threw him about like a rag doll. And it threw him uncomfortably close to a few of those shiny streaks of light he had seen on TV.

He was about to direct himself into as graceful a landing as he could manage, when he was hit with what must have been a truck. The breath was knocked out of him, he felt every hair on his body pull tight against his pores, his heart thundered against his ribs, there was bright light absolutely everywhere, and everything hurt. Then it was over in less than a blink of an eye. He was left shaking in the open air, still feeling as though his skin was crawling, with his whole body burning, and smelling a slight burning scent. And his staff was, of course, thrown from his grasp, falling just out of reach.

He grasped at thin air, begging the wind to bring him closer to the one thing he needed to fly. And he might could have made it work, had it not been for his near electrocution seconds before. But he was still trying to equalize himself enough to just remember his own name, let alone harness the winds without his staff. So he free fell, tumbling in the empty space with no friendly hand to catch him. And he found himself petrified as the trees rushed up to greet him. He was lucky to have passed out from fear and pain just before he made contact with their thick limbs.

xXx

He awoke just a few hours later. The sun wasn't quite over the horizon, and some of the coolness of night still clung to Burgess.

Regardless, Jack knew he had to move, and fast. He wasn't looking to add injury to worse injury. The summer sun would be his death if he stayed much longer.

But moving wasn't so easy after having been struck by lightning, then dropped from several thousand feet in the air onto the unforgiving trees. As far as he could tell he had broken several things, one of them surely being his right leg and the other being at least one rib. But at least he had not broken his staff. It was just a few feet away, miraculously, lodged in a tree. As long as it was within close distance, Jack had a natural feeling for locating his staff. It was the only way he had not lost it over 300 years. He peeled himself up from the wet ground and clumsily scaled the tree. He let a few words he wasn't so proud of slip, justifying it with the fact that broken bones really hurt.

Once he had finally retrieved his staff and was safely back on the ground, using it as a crutch, he decided that his best option was to head to Santoff Clausen. He began to take off, then stopped, his teeth chattering for no reason. His heart was hammering again and his hands shook. There was nothing he wanted to do less than climb back into the sky again. He remembered the long trip down to the earth and the smell of lightning crisping his skin. He really, really didn't want to go back up there.

So, sighing in resignation, he began the long trek towards the town of Burgess.

xXx

Jack had forgotten what walking around barefoot felt like. He didn't walk much these days, preferring flight ninety nine percent of the time. But since that option was eliminated, he had to just deal with all of the twigs and thorns poking him in the feet.

Once he finally made it to Burgess the sun had risen, and the heat was climbing steadily. He now knew from experience that he had to get out before it got much higher. He rushed to the Bennet house, hoping Jamie would be there.

Once he arrived at the house, he wanted to fly up to Jamie's window and knock. But he found his teeth chattering once again. So, more than a little bit ashamed, he rang the door bell.

Jamie answered the door. Jack was happy for that, if a bit shocked.

"Jack?" Jamie asked, "What're you doing here?".

"What're you doing in your pajamas? Why aren't you getting ready for school?" Jack questioned him.

"It's summer. We don't go to school during the summer, duh. But why are you here during the summer?" Jamie still wanted his question answered, "And why do you look so... bad?". He made a face, looking at Jack's burnt and ripped clothes and probably whatever bruises and burns he himself was covered in.

"Bad night. Got in a fight with some lightning. Lost." Jack shrugged. "Hey, does your sister still have that globe the Easter Bunny gave her?" he asked.

"Um... sure. What do you need it for?" Jamie let Jack, who was leaning heavily on his staff, inside the house so he could rest on the sofa.

"Would she mind if I borrow it? I need to go see Bunny." now that Jack was sitting and resting, he found himself shaking all over.

"Nah, she won't mind if it's for you. Sophie thinks you're, like, the best thing ever. Well, maybe besides Bunny." Jamie laughed, then ran upstairs to grab the little snow globe Bunnymund had given Sophie. He had given it her to her as a birthday present, one of North's globes, but this one would take her to the Warren. He told her she was welcome anytime.

Jack smirked to himself. He wished he had a permanent home so he could invite Jamie and Sophie over. But Jack's real home was Burgess, where they both already lived, so the whole idea was kind of pointless.

Jamie came back down the stairs, snow globe and Sophie in tow. Sophie ran down the last few stairs, rounded the sofa, then threw herself into Jack's lap. Jack felt tears come into his eyes when she wrapped a hug around his aching ribs.

"So-Sophie! Hey, how ya... ouch!... doing?" he forced a smile.

"Good!" Sophie giggled, then she noticed the pained expression on his face, "You hurt?".

"Just a little bit." Jack said, ruffling her hair.

Sophie made a low whining sound, then started to cry. He looked down at her, horrified. Why was she crying?

"Sophie... Sophie, it's okay! It was just a little thunderstorm!" he tried to explain.

"You got hit by da thunder?" she sniffed.

"Yeah, that's all." he gave her his biggest grin. Sophie sobbed even louder. "I twied to tell Jamie dat da thunder was scary!" she cried.

"Wait, what? No no no the thunder won't hurt you! Just the lightning." Jack tried in vain to calm her down. Sophie cried even louder, sobbing something about being scared of the thunder and lightning.

"Jack! You're just making it worse!" Jamie interjected. He patted Sophie on the head. "Neither the thunder or the lightning is gonna hurt you Sophie." he assured her.

"But it hurt Jack." Sophie argued.

"That's because Jack was flying. You can't fly, so you'll be alright." Jack wasn't sure how sound Jamie's logic was, but it seemed to satisfy Sophie. It didn't really make him feel much better, however.

After Sophie settled down and climbed down from his lap, he told them both goodbye and promised to bring the snow globe later. He got the feeling that Jamie kind of wanted him to hang around for a bit longer. But Jamie held off asking, perhaps sensing that Jack was in more than a little pain. He thanked them both before leaving, grateful that they were both so understanding for their age.

xXx

Jack tumbled from the air conditioned cool of the Bennet house into the balmy warmth of the Warren. He fell on his face, lacking his usual grace. He pulled himself up from the dirt, the whole Warren spinning a bit. The heat here wasn't doing him any favors. Normally he could take it for a little bit, but today was a somewhat special case.

He didn't have to look far for Bunny, thankfully. He was busy guiding a whole line of eggs into a stream of bright purple paint. Jack trudged over, once again using his staff as a support.

"Um, Bunny? A little help?" he called.

Bunny whipped around, sniffing the air in apprehension, until he noticed that it was just Jack. "Goo'day, frostbite! How ya... what in the bloody hell didya do this time?!" he rushed over to grab Jack as he stumbled on an egg that had run up underneath his feet.

"Not my fault for once. Helping Tooth. There was a storm and some lightning got me. I still have all the teeth in a bag in my hoodie pocket, though." Jack explained.

"What?! 'Some lightning got you'? Oh, is that all?" Bunny rolled his eyes, then scooped Jack up, hoisting him over one shoulder.

"Hey! Put me down! What's the big idea?!" Jack punched him in the back feebly. Then he yelped when Bunny adjusted his grip around him.

"Oi! You got a broken rib, too? Just how far did ya fall?" Bunny asked.

"Maybe a couple thousand feet?" Jack replied.

"A couple thousand... ugh, we're paying North a visit. How dya manage to blow off a couple thousand foot fall and a lightning strike? Just how far is that in meters, anyway? If ya were mortal ya'd be deader than dead." Bunny tapped his foot and opened up a hole in the ground.

"No no no, not the tunnels! Not right now!" Jack moaned, thinking of his numerous brakes and sprains.

"Too late!" Bunny laughed, jumping into the hole.

Somewhere along the trip, Jack drifted off to sleep, deciding that sleep was a far better option. Bunnymund laughing at every last complaint he made was really getting on his nerves. He seemed to be trying to make the trip extra rough this time.

xXx To be continued...

*My theory as to why the fairies molt in summer, though it's ridiculous that I even developed one, is that birds normally molt during times of less stress. Like between mating and migration. There's proof in the movie that Jack gets a kick out of rough housing with the kids (Jamie's sleigh ride). He also seems to not mind helping Tooth with her job by knocking out a few teeth. Also, in winter, kids might slip and fall and knock out more teeth due to ice. So more kids loose teeth in the winter! So the fairies are finally getting a break from Jack in the summer and begin to molt. So this whole situation is kind of his fault anyways. BOOM. Well, I'm off to develop more ridiculous theories elsewhere.*

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