-Burgess-

"Jack!"

"Anna!"

North bolted after Anna as she all but sprinted to Jack's side, everyone suddenly in a frenzy of fear and movement. Bunny hefted Sophie into the air, shouting to Jack,

"Get Jamie! Now!" Jack scooped up the confused young boy whose eyes were still glued to the treeline, the treeline that Anna had refused to look at. She knew what was there. She didn't need to see to know that the nightmares were watching, not with that poignant stench of rotting fear wafting through the air.

"Anna, will you be okay?"Jack asked, kicking into the air. Even his eyes were wide and scared, panting and fingers clutching Jamie close. And for a moment, Anna wanted to say that no, no she would most definitly not be okay. But she looked again at Jamie and the terror on his face, and to Jack who looked so torn, and she nodded.

"I'll be fine, Snowflake, get them out of here." Jack, looking almost relieved, shot off into the air. With Bunny racing Sophie back home, that left Anna, Tooth, Sandy and North. Anna turned, seeing North at the ready, one of the swords in his hand and poised to strike. Even Tooth and Sandy were taking offensive stances, facing something Anna had yet to lay eyes upon.

She sucked in a breath and closed her eyes, hearing the sounds of hooves on snow, of snorting nightmares. Something was stirring up a terror in her chest, but she breathed down into it and curled her hands into fists. She thought about North for a second. Just a second. About what she almost told him, and about what he almost heard. About his promise to something he couldn't even grasp yet.

And then Anna opened her eyes and turned to the nightmares.

"How many do you see, Sandy?"Tooth asked, only a hint of fear in her voice. Anna heard the tinkling of the sand images, and never quite saw the number. All she saw were the nightmares and their furious eyes, about two dozen of them stalking slowly forward. And the shadows behind them moving organically. These she hadn't seen in awhile.

"North."Anna said, resolving something, "Look past the nightmares. Do you see those shadows?"

"Yes...what are they?"

"Fearlings."

The first of the nightmares charged right to Sandy, who cut it down easily enough. Except that the first one had opened a floodgate, the others suddenly stampeding forward with deafening cries. Anna's heart jumped into her throat, her hands freezing, half-raised in the air. Instead of one choice, Anna's body made another, stumbling backwards and watching as North and Tooth and Sandy cut down the nightmares. And she just stood there.

No, this had to be different.

Not after what had just happened.

She had made the decision that, if any of this was going to keep going, if she was ever going to find the answers she needed, she couldn't wait. This had to happen now.

And so, as she watched North slash through black sand, the shadows on the trees slowly peeling themselves off and standing, almost like silouhettes, Anna tried to bring something up inside of her. The nightmares were dwindling, but now the Guardians saw the real threat behind them. Anna couldn't draw enough air into her lungs.

"Anna!"North called, and she snapped her head towards him, North panting and looking serious, "Fearlings, you know them?"

You know them?

And that's when it clicked. The one way Anna could destroy something from her past. That she could sever that tie, even if it was only a fraction. She steeled herself, taking in another breath and trying to still her trembling hands. Only when she did that, rolling her shoulders backwards, did she feel a release in her chest. A flowing, hot sensation through her arms, trembling and buzzing and almost painful, uncomftroble in her veins. It pricked at her fingertips.

And she nodded.

"Yeah. I know them."

She stood straighter than she had in weeks, taking deep, controlled breaths. Her fingers spread out at her sides, reaching, feeling for something. Individual threads constantly in motion, feeling them along her skin, scratching and living and breathing.

"What do we do with them?"Tooth's sweet voice asked through the low rumble of shadows detatching from trees and a few nightmares still left standing, hoofing at the ground.

"Nothing," Anna said, reaching her hands forward, forcing herself to focus only on the nightmares, only on the sensations right at her fingertips, at the absolute power flowing through her, "You don't do anything. I've got this."

North might have said something to her in that moment, but she never heard it. Her blood rushed through her ears, the noises of two-dozen beating black hearts filling her head and overflowing any and everything around her. The nightmares were charging, the fearlings were lunging forward to her, right at her and no one else.

And like a mammoth snapping a twig, Anna closed her hands and severed the flow to her fingertips.

She noticed that dying was never sudden, not even something like this. First, they all froze. Stilled for seconds, as if the life left in them could only do that much before it got caught up in the fuse. That moment, that still little moment when everything came back to her and she was suddenly back in this world, when everything surrounding her was in focus, she was allowed to see what she had just done. She couldn't change it, but she could still see for that powerful moment.

And then, like actual sand and shadows, they melted into the ground. Into the snow, leaving it just as white as it had been moments before. And Anna dropped her arms, sucking in a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, looking straight forward. She knew he was looking at her. She just couldn't look at him.

"...Woah. What was that?"Jack was back, apparently. Which meant that Aster was as well. Anna swallowed, but the lump in her throat stayed, her hands pressing to the sides of her thighs. She still did not look at anyone.

"She just controlled those things, didn't she? Did she just make them go away?"Aster's voice was no less accusing than she'd expected it to be, but those words did still hurt. They still dug under her skin until she felt them crawling into her head, lip caught between her teeth. All she could do was shake her head.

"No."

"But you said you knew them. I heard you, we were just getting back and-"

"Bunny!"North's tone was harsh, but Anna heard and undercurrent of worry in there. Of fear. Anna had to take in a deep breath and turn. It was strangely difficult, turning and seeing all of them. To actually see in real life what she'd imagined their faces would look like. North was serious, dark, but his eyes were wide and worried. Tooth looked terrified, Sandy looked curious, Aster looked accusing, and Jack looked innocently confused.

Anna wished she could have known them better.

"Anna, you saved us. Es all fine, you don't need to explain-"

"No, North! She does!" Aster interrupted him furiously, stepping forward with a fire in his eyes and his paws in fists. Anna, out of reflex, took an equal amount of steps back, and as she did saw the panic rise in North's eyes. He was scared that she would run again, that she would hurt him again. Really, that's all she ever did was hurt him. She couldn't blame him.

"You've been covering for her, lettin' her slide off with what she's been doing all these years gone! She hurt you, and suddenly comes back and tries to pretend that everything is ok?"Aster was shouting now, pointing a boomerang in Anna's direction.

"I'm not."She tried, not knowing why she defended herself. She knew how this ended, this was just foreplay. Aster gave her a look of pure malice, brows hooding his eyes, and asked in a low voice,

"Oh, yer not huh? Not here with yer crook idea of making up to North what you did to him? I didn't trust you the moment you came in here, something about you was off, sheila. Now I know what it is." Her heart dropped at his words, the hair on the back of her neck standing up. She saw the rest of them looking between the two, no one knowing exactly what to say. Except Aster, of course. "You knew those things, huh? You knew what they were? Didn't we see you right after we ran into them those nights ago, huh?"

"Bunny, you aren't saying-"

"I am! You look me in the eye, Anna, and if you actually care about North, if you've got a shred of honor left in you, tell the bloody truth: You work with Pitch, don't you?"

And there, from a foreign mouth, was it. The words she'd been waiting for. Finally, finally, someone had called her out on the one thing that haunted her. The thing that kept her in a constant whirlpool of self-deprication and crushing guilt, pressing down on her lungs and making it hard to live. And there, right there, someone had finally said it. And strangly enough, it almost made things easier.

"Bunny! How dare you?!"North thundered at his friend, eyes wide and Aster never taking his off Anna.
"Anna wouldn't...no!"Jack shook his head. Even though it was easier now than ever before to bring it out, to reach inside and rip the words from her chest, it equally crushed her. She felt it in her bones, the crippling weight of coming clean and knowing that it meant giving up something that could have been wonderful. Because to recouncil with North, to be friends with Jack at the very least, that could have changed her life.

And now, this was all she had.

"...No,"She said, now her voice at an average level but sounding so loud to her, "he's right."

Aster, despite his accusations, looked almost surprised. Though not as much as North, whose hands dropped slowly to his sides, a look of pain and sadness and betrayal all washing over his old face. And Anna couldn't bear to look at him, but she made herself. She owed him at least that much. So she looked into the eyes of the only thing she could have ever called home, and she told him everything.

"I told you I wasn't alone all those years. When I left, because I was scared and angry and lost, Pitch found me. He made a lot of promises, and to someone who had nothing left, those promises were enough... I can't say I'm sorry. I am, but it doesn't mean anything anymore. I did horrible things and there's no way I can take any of that back. You just saw what I can do, I helped make those things, North, I figured out how to bring shadows and fear to life. I did that." Her voice cracked and she took in a breath, blinking away a foginess at her eyes. The lump in her throat was painful.

"Anna...you made mistake. You were young."North was trying, and that almost killed her. She might have preferred him to act like Aster, at least she knew she deserved that. She shook her head, almost angry that he was sticking up for her.

"In the beginning, but how long do you think it went on? North, I tried to run dozens of times, and each time I came back to him. When you saw me? I was running."

"You ran! You didn't want to-"

"But I did, North!"She snapped, everyone else moving back a bit, "I didn't want to, but I did all those things! I still did them! Don't you dare tell me that I'm a good person because I tried to get out, because I'm not!"

"Anna, you are!"He tried, but she shook her head, heart pounding and desperately trying to keep control, a layer of snow melting around her feet. And it all felt too similar. She was going through it again. And she couldn't do that. So she turned, and Anna tried to leave, but North's hand caught on her shoulder. She shook him off violently, ready to run, ready to leave.

A ripping sound violently stilled the air, and Anna had only a second to look back and see the image of North holding the ripped white cloth in his hand, looking from it to her in a pained confusion. Then she left. Then Anna turned and ran, into the treeline, faster than any of them could follow. As far as she knew, none of them did.

And she ran.

Anna ran, and ran, and ran. Because that was one thing she was good at.

Hit the ground running, don't stop.

-Back at the Clearing-

It looked so small in his hand. So small and torn, fragile and broken. North couldn't describe the feeling he had in his chest any better than thinking that he had picked at a wound that hadn't yet healed. Now, something was pouring out. And she was gone.

Again.

Anastasia, who was still so young and so scared, was gone again. He hadn't done enough to make her stay. North felt like he couldn't breathe.

"...North?"Tooth's soft voice came from somewhere near him, her gentle hand on his shoulder, but he didn't acknowledge her. Instead, he stopped a rising pain in his throat and numbly reached into his coat, taking out the snowglobe without looking away from the white fabric.

He had made her fight when she wanted to stay.

He had forced her to stay when she wanted to leave.

He had kept her quiet when she had to speak.

He had just wanted her back so bad.

He couldn't remember saying anything into the snowglobe, but he must have gone through the motions, because when he finally did look away from the fabric a portal was in front of him. Jack said something about looking for someone, but Tooth hushed him. When North paused, when he looked into the swirling colors in front of him, he caught a snippet of their conversation.

"He needs us with him."

"But Anna..."

"She'll be fine. You can look for her later...we need to be with him."

"...I know."

North didn't stop them from following him, honestly he did want them with him. So when he passed through, never stopping when he appeared on the other side, North silently led the group across the overlook and into his office. Yetis and elves cast him concerned glances, but North felt too hardened, too broken at the same time to answer their silent questions. He just pushed forward and opened the door to his office, the others following behind him.

Someone shut the door, and North fell into his cushy armchair. He felt like, had he stood any longer, his body would have given up and just let him fall to the ground. It was quiet now, quiet with only sounds of shuffling filling the pockets of silence, and North could only imagine her face.

So scared and so desperate for him to retaliate in a way that he never could. All of that pain behind such young eyes, so much fear. Anna was a troubled girl, and she had always held a sense of not belonging ever since she'd been given her powers...

"She thought she did not deserve to be saved." North said quietly, almost to himself. The others listened carefully, gently, no one speaking up or moving a muscle. And he spoke without really knowing why. "When the Man in the Moon gave her a second chance at life, she felt that it should have gone to someone else. Her parents. She never knew how wonderful she really was, how full of love and care and empathy..." North stopped a moment, squeezing his eyes shut and breathing out.

"...Her life has been too hard, and she hasn't gotten the chance to know that she deserves forgiveness... She deserved so much better than this."

He felt tiny hands at his face, and that's how he knew he'd shed a few tears. When he opened his eyes, he saw Sandy slowly floating back and making images over his head.

We can bring her back. We can tell her all of this, make her believe. I thought she was very nice. She smelt like leaves.

North rubbed a hand down his face and nodded to Sandy, looking down into his own hands.

"I should have gone after her before now, I should have made her stay...but I'd been trying that, and still she left. Maybe it is that...she does not want to be here with me..." North was quiet now, the realization of that possibility dawning on him. That maybe the little girl he raised and thought of as his own child would not come back simply because she didn't want to be there. That was another kind of pain.

The silence dragged on, and then,

"North...North, I'm sorry mate." Bunny. Bunny was speaking quietly. "I didn't know...I just, I didn't want you ta get hurt, I thought that...if I could have just kept you from getting close again, then she couldn't hurt you. I was wrong. I think I was wrong that she would hurt you. I don't know if I was wrong about her, but I was wrong. About a lot of things, and...I-I'm sorry. I'll go look for her, I'll bring her back."

"Bunny."North stopped him, and looked up at his friend who had never looked worse. And he shook his head, offering the smallest of small smiles. "I am not angry at you still. I know what you wanted, and you have made mistake as I have. Water under bridge."

But Jack didn't look like he shared the same easy sentiments. In fact, his hands were clutching the staff harder, his jaw tight and eyes wide.

"North, we have to go get her now. What if Pitch finds her first? What if he wants to fight her alone, or what if he gets her back? I know what it's like, I know how he can be, and if Anna's in a bad place right now...North, I can't just let her be out there alone." Jack insisted, and North was slowly starting to pull himself together. Slowly, and not completely, but it was starting.

"Anna is very good at not wanting to be found, Jack. There could be more nightmares, or Pitch himself...we must all go together. We will look."North agreed, and Tooth fluttered to the ground near all of them.

"Maybe,"She offered, "we should give her some time. A day, and we go looking tomorrow. Give her time to...sort things out? I promise, Jack, we'll go bright and early tomorrow. I just don't think she's in a state to listen right now."

North wanted to go. He wanted to know she was safe and tell her she was sorry and tell her she was forgiven. He wanted to wrap her up in his arms and never let her go. He wanted to tell her she had a choice in everything she did. And it took every ounce of effort he had not to push himself out of that seat and go find her right then and there. But he knew Tooth was right from the ripped fabric in his hand. He squeezed it, and nodded.

"Tomorrow."He whispered tiredly.

And tomorrow, he would find her. This time, he would find her.

-Five Centuries Ago-

"Look at those ones!"

"Ha! So bright tonight, looks like Manny is surrounded by many bright friends tonight!"

Anna laughed at how North had put it into words, both laying on their backs in the snow with their hands behind their heads, her head inches from his. The stars above them filled the sky, some standing apart in pockets of darkness, others clustered into beautiful wave-like patterns. Tonight, as they lay apart from the village with its candles flickering, nothing was around to dim the light of the stars. They were beautiful, glimmering to them, impossibly far away.

"North?"

"Yes, bluebird?"

"Could I make a star come to life? I can do it to plants and people and animals, what if I tried it on a star?"

North chuckled, the kind of laugh that only someone with his spirit could have. Not condescending, not amused, but excited as if he'd been told of the most fantastic adventure.

"Anna, stars are already alive! Look at them, all of them in their magnificence! They pulse with life, they are so full of life that they give life to all that is surrounding them!" His hands fanned out in front of him, just over her head, and she saw a map of stars between his flexed fingers. "Which, if you think about it, makes you a star, too." North finished warmly, and though she rolled her eyes Anna did smile.

"I don't shine like that."She teased, and North scoffed.

"You have never seen yourself, have you? You shine like all the stars in the sky, Anna! You are brighter than the sun! You just have to see it for yourself! Once I finish making that reflection glass I told you about, then you will see!"

Anna knew he was exaggerating, afterall she could look down at her body now and know she didn't glow. But how North said it, how North said everything, always made her believe.

And that night, Anna did believe that she shined as bright as North told her she did.

-Present Day, The Woods Near Burgess-

Anna didn't know how long she'd been running, or at what time she had stopped and stood near a frozen lake. All she knew was that she was looking into her slightly distorted reflection, seeing dark bruises under her eyes and a look that was a mix of terror and exauhstion. She scrubbed a hand down her face, and when she looked again all she saw different was that she wasn't afraid, so much as alone. Completely, utterly alone.

But that, at least, did not last long.

"In my defense, I did tell you." The voice walked up almost silently behind her, and Anna bit the inside of her cheek to keep from doing something drastic. Drastic like hitting him, that is.

Because even now, even after everything, Anna did not want to kill Pitch.

"Why do you want me back so badly?" She asked, her voice thin and throat hoarse. Pitch tossed a rock onto the frozen lake, the noise sounding strange and almost comical, if Anna had anything left in her to laugh.

"I need you for your powers, dear, you know that. You can't say that I've ever lied to you about my intentions." He threw another rock, and it wasn't until then that Anna realized these weren't rocks at all. They were solidified shadows, hitting the lake surface and spreading out on the other side, creeping up a large boulder on the other side and dissapearing. "This, though, had another reason to it. You see, Anna, the Guardians aren't sunshine and rainbows as you wanted them to be."

"I didn't want them to like me." She stated simply.

She stood there next to Pitch Black, telling him all of this. And it crept back in, that pathetic, weak, needing feeling. How easy was it to tell Pitch Black, and not North? To tell the King of Nightmares and not the man who had practically raised her? It seemed demented, like poor judgement on her part, and she thought that maybe it was a bit of that. But she knew the truth, the one thing that had crippled her all those other times.

Despite everything he did, Pitch Black was the only person who knew guilt like Anna did. And from that, they were two broken people who needed the other. Anna just wished she didn't. She wished she didn't get a relief whenever they spoke, that someone understood her. She wished she could hate Pitch Black completely. She wished she could be afraid of him. She wished she could know how despicable he was. But she didn't, because Anna knew too much about him. And he of her.

"You wanted justification, hm? I always knew you were a bit odd."He said almost boredly, as if he hadn't just purposefully ruined any chance she had at redemption. Pitch was like that, Anna knew. He felt something deeper, his words meant more, but he hid them deep inside for his knowledge only.

"I wanted to be better. And I will be."

"How do you propose you'll do that, dear?"

"I'm not going back with you."

Pitch scoffed, as if the idea were that ridiculous, and maybe it was. But Anna had already made the decision, she couldn't go back on it. Even if it meant uncertainty, Anna wouldn't go back.

The strangest part?

She wanted to leave who she was. Not necessarily Pitch.

"Oh, of course you won't my dear! You still do have a job to do, afterall. I fully expect you to go back to them."His words were cold and his lazy movements mocking, the black cloak around him dusting the ground in black shadow. A sick feeling twisted in Anna's gut, and her palms pressed against her outer thighs.

Pitch knew what that meant. He'd studied her for centuries, and knew her little quirks and habits. If her hands were in her pockets, she felt out of place. If they hung at her sides, she was comforted. Fists meant she was about to run. Pressed to her outer thighs, she was trapped. Anna's hands gave everything away about her, everything that her steely eyes hid. And Pitch felt it, almost a ghosted shadow over her, all the pent-up fear that coiled in her head.

Afraid of what she was and what she would be. Afraid of the Guardians not accepting her. Afraid of them accepting her, and her not deserving it. Afraid of staying, afraid of leaving. Anna was forever stuck in a suspended grey area, one that fascinated Pitch Black endlessly. He looked at her now, his head tilting and her eyes looking down at her wavy reflection in the uneven ice. Her jaw was tight, she was breathing a bit heavily. Pitch saw all of this.

He liked to think it gave him power over her. He was wrong, of course, and he knew that. But he still liked to think. He just saw what he did to her and tried to press down that sensation that what he was doing was wrong. A feeling only she had ever given him, something new that he had never actually forgiven her for. Maybe it was that they were so similar, that he'd found a semblance in another person, something he thought he'd never find.

That was why he kept her, amoung other obvious reasons. Knowing his guilt was felt by one other, in a dysfunctional and completely twisted way, comforted him. And he knew it did the same for her. This had never been spoken, he just knew. As he knew that she would, eventually, bend to his will.

And he pressed down the guilt of that almost mechanically.

"Anna, you know you can't fight me on this. You've been hurt enough tonight. Wait to tomorrow, then go back to them and beg or whatever it is that you do that captures their hearts. I'll tell you when I need you next, dear Anna." He mused to her, taking a smooth step onto the ice of the lake, ready to head back to his home and to put his mind to rest. But he stopped after a few steps, hearing nothing behind him. Pitch looked over his shoulder to the solitairy Anna.

He looked at her hands. They were playing with the sleeves of her worn hoodie.

Discomfort, decision, and deep thought.

"Are you coming?"He asked, trying to sound as if he didn't care for the answer. Anna shook her head.

"No."

She did not say anything else, and that was how Pitch knew he had won.

And it was odd.

That used to bring him joy.