Jack's nightmares were black and desolate. They didn't make sense, as dreams often don't, but the swirling grey images which spun like a whirl wind while he slept filled him with a deep feeling of fear and isolation. The swirling images flashed away and Jack was left in a cold stone chamber where the shadows seemed to ooze from the corners like syrup but then turn misty and insubstantial as they curled around his feet. The mist curled up his body until it surrounded him and the chamber was misted over in grey. One lone tendril reached towards his heart and pierced him with a freezing blast. Jack doubled over in pain as the cold spread, down his back, through his arms and legs and up towards his head until he was clutching it in his hands, screaming. But his hands where cold and made it worse and he could find no release. In this strange land of grey nightmares rational thoughts started to leak through. Jack feared the Guardians would here him screaming in his sleep and know something was wrong with him. But he also wanted them to wake him, to hear his cries and comfort him, to get him out of this terrible vision. But no-one came and Jack was trapped in his agony in the stone chamber, with his hands hanging limply at his sides.
North opened Jack's door quietly and stepped through, just as Jack stretched and opened his eyes.
'Ah Jack, you have slept for a long time, we would have woken you but you looked so peaceful.'
A look of confusion and pain crossed Jack's face but disappeared too quickly for North to process it.
'Oh, uh, sorry. I hope I'm not a bother.'
North looked slightly offended, 'You are family Jack, you are never bother!'
North moved over to inspect Jack's bandage before opening a draw and pulling out some clean gauze. He set to work redoing Jacks bandages, chatting about some of his latest toys before briefly leaving and returning with a glass of water and some pancakes.
'You have drink, but if you don't want to eat, is fine.'
He placed them on the bedside table before leaving Jack in peace.
Jack contemplated his dream as he reached for the water. He couldn't remember the details, just the feeling of cold. He bit his lip and tried to slow his panicked breathing. And none of the other Guardians had heard him cry out. He must have been silent then, which was odd, for Jack. His fingers touched the glass and his brooding was interrupted as a bolt of ice shot from his long pale fingers into the water and froze it solid. Jack sat dumbstruck, with his mouth hanging slightly open. One of his hands was holding his staff as it always did when he slept, but he hadn't meant to do that. He reached to the back of his mind and felt his power. His control had always been good, sometimes when he was very upset he would cause storms and his control would slip slightly, like a rubber band being slackened, but he could still rein it in if he wanted to. He felt now and it felt as it did at those times,
'Must have just been the dream that upset me,' He thought.
He reached to rein his power back in but nothing happened. Jacks breathing sped up and a knot formed in his stomach. In his panic, hoar frost started to spread out from his hands onto the sheets and down onto the floor. Jack tried to regulate his breathing, to control the power which was coming from him but there was no response. The temperature dropped and Jack scrambled to his feet, desperate to get out of the room and get somewhere far away. A wave of nausea knocked him back down but he scrambled to his feet again, head pounding.
He tried the windows, but they were locked fast, probably North's cunning plan to not let him leave before he was better. Jack massaged his temples with his fingers.
'Calm,' he whispered to himself, 'breathe', he started to pace slowly around the room 'don't panic.'
Ice formed under his feet as he walked, but he kept going, pushing down the rising panic. He picked up the glass off the table as he came round and clutched it tightly, trying to get his loose excess power to go into it. But the ice kept coming and temperature became so low that if one of the guardians had been in the room they would have probably frozen to death.
Jacks pace quickened and all of his remaining calm broke as his hold on his power slipped further from his grasp. He curled into the corner of the room, hyperventilating and hugged his staff close to his body.
His staff
'Of course.' Jack thought, cursing himself for not thinking of it sooner. He dropped his staff a few feet away from him on the floor and scrambled away from it, panting. He looked across at the weather beaten piece of wood lying in the corner. He felt incomplete without it, he could no longer hear the wind, who he had not realised, had been rushing around the room in worry, until he couldn't hear her anymore. All he heard now was what everyone else heard, the rushing of air. He curled in on himself, feeling isolated and incomplete.
'What just happened?' He whispered miserably to the empty room.
