-Thank you all for being so patient. I'll be aiming for about one chapter a week until the end of this work. Enjoy!-

-Santoff Claussen, North Pole-

On the outside, it looked like the Workshop had been healed. The yetis worked faster than anyone could have imagined, and with the other Guardians helping, the destruction looked like it was just a bad dream. But it wasn't. Inside, things were still broken.

North sat and looked down at his hands, these hands that had held her and smoothed her hair and wiped away tears. These hands that had pleaded with her, these hands that had taught her to read and write and build small toy trains. These hands that had thrown her out.

These hands that betrayed her.

He clenched them closed, squeezing his eyes shut and breathing out heavily. She was gone now, and there was a space so expansive that North thought it would never close. Because yes, she was gone now, and he had thrown her out this time. Now, she had no doubts that he wanted her gone, he had said it to her face. All of those fears, all of that pain he saw in her eyes, he had made it real. In a moment of hurt, when Pitch knew he had found a soft spot, Pitch had jabbed and scrubbed until that wound was raw.

And now she was back with him. Everything she could have had, all that she could have done, and it was gone now. North felt an ache that went on and on in his chest.

Somewhere farther away from him, Jack stood in the doorway, holding something small in his hands. Quietly, and cautiously so as not to startle him, he knocked on the door with his staff. North looked up, almost surprised that someone else lived there except him. Jack felt awkward, knowing what North was going through. He himself was conflicted. On one hand, he didn't believe Pitch. He had seen Anna, he knew how she was and that look in her eyes. He knew that something along those lines might have happened, but not how Pitch had described them, and certainly not within Anna's power.

And on the other...on the other, he was afraid. Because he knew how unstable Anna was when it came to sides to take. She was terrified, he could see, that she didn't belong anywhere. And he, of all people, knew about that. She stepped lightly, fearfully, thinking that at any moment something could go wrong and it would all fall down. And then it did.

Jack didn't forgive North for that. But he understood.

"Hey there, just wanted to, you know, bring you this. Looked really tiny, I don't know if it's important or not." Jack said, really using it as an excuse to speak to North, to make sure he was okay. Jack rarely got many opportunities to speak with North, and so was approaching this delicately. He held out the tiny, golden telescope in his hand and North looked at it like it was a lost treasure, a kind of bittersweet look on his face.

"Es Anna's gift, I gave it to her..."North muttered, and Jack almost winced. Of course, the one random thing he picks up has a ridiculous amount of significance.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't know."Jack tried to recover, handing it to North who looked at it with a heavy look that Jack had never seen before. He didn't like it. He didn't like North not jolly and boisterous and loud. He didn't like the quiet. So, when North seemed done looking over the toy(or when he couldn't bear to look at it any longer) he pulled up a chair and sat on it backwards, resting his chin on one arm, the other holding the staff.

"Jack?"North asked, looking confused. Jack sucked in a breath.

"So, uh, I think we should talk. About...you know. What happened." North seemed caught off-guard, but he didn't protest. Jack took that as a greenlight to go ahead and speak. "I understand why you did what you did. I mean, there was a lot of evidence piled against her, and everything was destroyed. None of us were in our right mind. I don't think I even realized what had happened until it did."

"Jack, you do not need to comfort me."North said kindly, raising a hand.

"I'm not trying to." North raised his brows, and Jack went on, "What you did was...wrong. And I know you know that, but...Anna's out there somewhere. And she's scared, and she thinks that all of her worst fears just came true. We have to prove to her that they didn't...because they didn't, right? She belongs here?"

"Of course she does."North whispered earnestly, and Jack smiled at his small victory. He sat back, saying then,

"Well, sitting around here isn't going to do anything. We've looked for her before. We won't give up now. Eventually, Pitch is gonna find us, but we'll be ready, and we'll get Anna back. But we can't just mope around here, you know? That's not how this is gonna work. She needs us, it's time we showed her that we need her, too. She fit in. It was weird, but she...filled this space that we didn't know was there."

North, for the first time in a long time, smiled softly. It brought a light to Jack, made him sit straighter and smile wider. He'd done something right, he'd gotten through. This hadn't crashed and burned.

"Very well put, Jack. You should be poet!" He joked lightly, and Jack would have reached forward and punched him playfully, but his hand stopped mid-way.

Outside the door, there was a scream.

And then the sound of hooves on wood and tile.

Jack looked to North, whose eyes were just as wide.

"Not yet."Jack muttered in dread, both of them bolting to their feet and throwing open the door. Not yet, not yet, they weren't ready. He repeated this in his head over and over and over again until they reached the overlook, seeing nightmares hoofing the ground, looking them right in the eye. There were only three of them, though, and the moment North and Jack came into view they reared up and dissolved into shadowy forms of sand, arching up into the air and ribboning out of the hole in the roof of the Workshop.

Tooth shot over to them, Aster right behind her, and Sandy making frantic signs. He wanted them to look outside. And so, they did. All of them collectively ran down the stairs, hearts pounding and yetis scrambling to get anything to defend the Workshop with, the five Guardians bursting through the door as one unit and bounding out into the snow. And it was there that they stopped and looked ahead at what lay in wait for them.

"Hello, Guardians,"Pitch greeted icily, smile crooked on one side of his face, "I do hope we aren't interrupting anything."

Behind him, hundreds of nightmares dotted the snow, thousands of coal-red eyes. It was an army, hiding the white blanket of snow under jagged black hides and seeping, black-sand manes. There were too many, and each Guardian knew individually that there was no way out of this. They'd taken on armies before. This was nothing like that.

North looked on, searching, but she wasn't there. Pitch must have seen him looking, because his smile only broadened and he said in a silky, malicious tone,

"I'm afraid she opted out of the festivities tonight. Not her style to watch the fallout, really. She preferred a more...backstage kind of lifestyle. Not really belonging in the big leauges. But, you know that already, don't you?"

And it bit at North that he was right. It bit at him that Anna wasn't there. But, more than anything, it almost killed him that he would never see her again. He would fight as hard as he could, but he saw a loosing battle when he saw one. Right then and there, North almost crumbled.

He knew what his last words to her had been. And he could never take those back. After everything, that couldn't have been how it ended. After all that fight and love and careful conection, that was how it ended. And it wasn't fair. North wanted to tell her he loved her. But she wasn't there, and he knew why.

The nightmares began to step forward.

-A Frozen Lake in Burgess-

She raked her hands through her hair and breathed heavily, gritting her teeth and trying to block out all of the images in her head. She wasn't there. She should have been there, and she wasn't, and she knew what was going to happen. No fairytale could give them a happy ending. There were too many, and if they survived the nightmares...

She let out a scream that no one would hear and clenched her hands into fists, in the middle of a lake with nothing to throw or hit. And then, as she did this, the clouds parted a bit above her, grey and slow. And when she looked up, panting and face flushed, she saw it. It was just a silver orb in the sky, but she saw him. She felt him. Finally, after so long, he was there. And he was too late.

"Why?"She asked quietly, teeth clenched and a lump in her throat. The moon looked down, but she swore, she swore she knew he was looking. Millions of miles away, she felt she was looking him in the eye. She hadn't spoken to him in centuries. Now, though, what else could she have done? Everything was gone now, everything was destroyed. Her life would lie in ashes around her.

What else did she have but to shout at the moon?

"Why me? Why did you do that to me? I didn't deserve to stay! That was careless, choosing me! What good can I do? What were you thinking? I hurt him, I hurt the greatest Guardian that's ever lived. Again and again, more than once, I broke his heart. And he always came back. And you let him. You let me hurt him and you let him come back. That isn't fair to him. He didn't do anything wrong." She blinked and tears broke free, rolling down her face and curving at her jaw. The moon did not look away from her this time.

"Everything I did, everything I went through...you never once came down from your castle to tell me what to do. You talk to North, you talk to the others...why not me? Why not me, when I was so destructive? Why did you let me go to Pitch, and why did you let us understand each other, and why did you let what happend to him happen? I fought so hard, and I fell so low, and you never once reached down to at least tell me how to stand back up." She was panting, the words falling out without stop. She turned away, and then back again, shouting as loud as she could,

"If you were going to keep me alive, you should have told me why!"

Anna panted, throat hurting and eyes stinging, furiously wiping at the tears on her face. She felt as pathetic as she knew she sounded. She knew it was all her fault. She knew she was the only one to blame. But she was so tired. She was tired of being lost and confused, she was tired of treading water in a grey area. She just wanted to know why. Why she did all of this. Why she was even there.

The tears wouldn't stop, no matter how hard she shut her eyes or wiped at her face. She breathed in shakily, and then whispered in a shaky breath,

"I just wanted him to be happy. I didn't want the rest of this."

"I know."

Anna jerked and slipped on the ice, falling hard on her elbow and flipping around, pushing herself back a bit. Her heart hurt in her chest from the shock, looking up at the voice that had spoken behind her out of the thinnest of air. Except there wasn't air there. There used to be, she'd known she was alone. But something was there now.

Someone was there now.

A man stood there in a white suit, his hands folded behind his back. He stood tall, and his shoulders were broad, but that was all that there was menacing about him. His face was a bit round, and his eyes a bit small, and his head completely bald. He looked at her with an expression that struck her to the core, stilling her there. A sadness in his eyes, a compassion, a love, an empathy, so many feelings in two tiny, light blue eyes, all at once. It was too hard to take in, though the man looked simple enough.

There was nothing simple about him, though. His presence, everything around him, it all changed. It was invisible, but he made everything different. Everything seemed to know what he was. Even the world around Anna began to quiet down. And she knew the moment she saw him, though she'd never seen or heard of how he looked before, exactly who this man was.

"...MiM?"She asked quietly, arms shaking as she still sat on the ice, looking up at him. At his name, he offered a tiny smile.

"Anastasia. I believe it's time we talk." His voice was warm and had an almost etherial feeling to it, the consonants sounding strange and the vowels echoing. It was a hard voice to describe. "I know you have a lot to say."

"I think I just said most of it."Anna said in a quiet, shaky voice. She was sitting there before MiM, the man who had brought her to life. Through all her screaming and distress, she'd never actually expected him to show up. And here he was, on a frozen lake.

"Ah, yes. Well, that is true, but you see Anna I've known what you wanted to say for a long time. I understand your fears. At one time, they were also mine. I wondered why I never came down. When I saw you in pain, my child, in a darkness from which only you could ever possibly escape, I asked myself why I never helped you. But I know, as I knew then, why." He spoke quietly, and Anna was gradually no longer shaking. She swallowed past the lump in her throat, looking at the man that was about to give her all her answers.

She wasn't sure she wanted them anymore.

"Why? After everything I did, after all the mistakes I made, why would you make North hurt like that?"She asked, a pain deep in her chest. MiM shook his head, and his look was the softest she'd ever seen.

"It was never about him. He loved you whether I wanted him to or not, and when you love someone you will get hurt many times, often deeply. As deeply as you love them. I cannot fathom the love he has for you. But it was never about North, Anna. This was about you. I never once came down to help you, to take your hand, because I knew you could stand up on your own. Because that's why I kept you alive, my child. Because you could stand, because you could pull yourself out of the darkest of times. You do not even know the power of your own ability to continue to live. I'd never seen it before in anyone."

"So why let me kill things?"

"Because death is just as important as life. Without it, there would be no importance to life, and without life there would be no joy. You are a balance, Anastasia. You are special. You are important. And you lived because you deserved to." MiM folded his hands in front of him, and Shawna was quiet for a long time, thinking about what he said. Inside of her somewhere, something warm was trickling in, building up.

"Do you forgive me for what I did?"She asked. MiM smiled.

"I don't need to. You did what you had to do. And now, you must do that again." He answered, and Anna swallowed. She thought a lot about a lot of things. And it was that moment, right there on the bed of frozen ice, that Anna made her last decision. And it cemented her existence.

Slowly, ever slowly, she turned and began to stand on shaky legs. She almost fell, but caught herself and started again. Eventually, after awhile, she stood in front of MiM and took in a deep breath. She looked him in the eye.

"This won't be the last fight."

"No, but the end is coming."

"Will you be there for it?"

"After all this? I wouldn't miss it for the world, my child. You are about to begin living for the first time in centuries." His smile was genuine, and Anna felt something buzzing in her veins. She wouldn't know what it was until a long time later. MiM silently reached out a hand in offering, as if asking her one last question. Anna paused.

"I don't hate Pitch Black." She felt the need to say it, and MiM's hand didn't move.

"I know. That's why you have to do this." And he was right. She knew he was right. Somewhere deep down inside of her, she had always known that. Except right now, it was the only option. She gripped the white cloth around her neck in one hand, and MiM's warm palm in the other.

There was a flash of white, and then a battlefield of black.

-Santoff Claussen, North Pole-

Their little arms flailed, their heavy hearts weighing them down. Pitch had his hands folded behind his back, standing still and calm in the middle of this storm. He watched with what he thought was the best seat in the house, hearing the shouts of the Guardians and the shrieking war-cries of his nightmares. This was all seemingly almost too easy, and he was worried that he might not even get to use the best peice of this puzzle. He didn't want Anna to have down all of that work for nothing.

And then, like a crack of lightning, there was a sound like the snapping of a whip and loud, struggling cry. A flash of white splintered out across the battlefield, jagged and heading towards him like spears. Pitch smiled, almost relieved that this would at least be a bit of a challenge. He raised his hands up, arms tensed as a wave of shadows rose up in front of him, freezing over in a beautiful wave of icey darkness in the most literal sense. He hated to destroy it, but this structure hadn't worked so well the last time.

He clenched his hand into a fist and the shadows flexed, breaking free from the ice as if it were water that the shadows shed from their coats, the darkness swarming around him and spreading out over the ground. He caught a look of determination and the buzzing sensation of concentrated fear in the eyes of Jack Frost, right before the shadows rose back up and replaced the nightmares that had fallen. The Guardians paused, all of them stepping slowly back and standing in a group, as if any of that could do them good.

Pitch, not wanting to miss a moment of this, rose up on a torrent of shadows and felt a warm feeling spreading through his veins. It made him smile, breathing it in.

"Oh, I must say I'm dissapointed. It took almost more than this to defeat you last time, what's wrong now, Guardians? Are you...missing something?" He mocked softly, and saw a darkness come over their faces, but especially North. Especially, especially him. And for a moment, Pitch was able to bask in that. He was able to stand on the precipiece of victory, could taste it and feel it just moments away, time just a breath from showing him a world where he could live, a world that catered to him rather than grating against him like a weed. For a beautiful moment, that world was all he could see.

And when that moment ended, he felt something ripped violently from his hands.

"No, they aren't. Not anymore." A voice echoed so strongly through the throng of nightmares that Pitch almost didn't recognize it. He stumbled a bit, eyes wide and looking around himself. But the voice came from almost every direction, and so he didn't seen when they arrived in a beam of moonlight that shot through the clouds like an arrow, or see when they stepped out of it like some kind of action-movie heroes.

He only saw the moonlight fading, and what it left behind just before him. It made the sea of nightmares shy backwards, retreating behind him with angry cries and snorts. Pitch only saw when Anna stood there, suddenly as if out of the thinnest of air, and he would never forget the look on her face for as long as he lived. It was strong, stronger than he could have ever remembered. And in that strength, in that resolution of where she stood and why, he saw something else. And that, above everything that would happen, haunted him.

Because he saw a reluctance to do what she was about to do. Pitch saw pity.

-Santoff Claussen, North Pole-

She stood in the middle of a battlefield, the snow beneath her feet pockmarked with hooves and trenches. Areas were covered in splintered frost, and it took everything she had not to look back. It too all she had to look Pitch in the eye, knowing it was never going to be the same again. Knowing that the connection would never be able to go back together, and that she was the one severing it. And she knew she had to, she knew that this was what would ultimately bring them both peace, but there was a bittersweetness to it all.

It had been a good run, if not terrible.

"Anna..."Pitch breathed, and then looked to her side. His eyes widened and he stumbled, arm up already as if in defense. MiM stood still next to her, and a look of confusion, of hurt, of hatred all crossed Pitch's eyes. Anna kept breathing, Anna kept searching for those little strings to pull at. There were thousands of them, all attatching to her, all clinging to her like static. She felt them all even when Pitch couldn't tell. She couldn't feel his. Wouldn't.

"How..." And then it dawned on him. Fury overtook his features, teeth gritting and face darkening, looking from MiM to Anna in a way that hurt her more than he would ever know. "I see," He continued in a low, angry tone, "I see how this plays out, dear. After all this, after everything that I've shown you, after the life that I allowed you to live, this is how it ends? This is how you want it to be over? How you'll remember this? This, next to the Man in the Moon, is how you plan to end me?"

Anna was filled with the kind of sadness that you only feel, not the kind you could explain. And she shook her head. Those little strings were tugging on her now, and she felt them ready to snap.

"Not the end of you, Pitch. The end of this."

She snapped the little strings, and everything around them fell. It was like a massive black wave had suddenly gone docile, barely a snicker passed through before all of the nightmares, thousands and thousands, had fallen to the snow and covered it in an inky blackness that lasted only a few moments. Then they sunk down, down, until only the distrubed snow showed any sign that something had happened there. Anna felt a release and she let out a breath, hands shaking. She knew what she'd just done.

And so did Pitch.

He didn't say anything more, but he did look around and then back to her. And in those eyes were all that needed to be said. And between the two of them, four centuries passed. She saw his hurt, and his resignation. And she saw what she felt, she saw what neither of them would ever admit:

That what they had was wonderful. And, could they have, neither of them would have ended it like this. They would have found another way. But there was no other way, and so that look passed between them and a sadness panged in the midst of Anna's solid acknowledgment of who she was and where she stood. They were going two different ways now, and Anna had made that decision. She wouldn't regret it. And Pitch knew that.

With one last look that struck her to the core, Pitch threw up his hands like claws and the shadows nosily funneled around him, torrenting up like an angry tornado until it collapsed in on itself, and all that was left was pot-holed snow. Anna could have collapsed right there, fallen asleep for a few hundred years.

"Anna!" A shout came from behind her, and Anna only turned around fast enough to see the blur of Jack Frost before he slammed into her, knocking them both backwards and Anna barely able to catch herself from falling. Jack squeezed her in the kind of hug that stayed on a person's skin, gripping her and exclaming into her shoulder, "I thought you were gone! I thought I wouldn't see you again! But you came back, you came back and..." He trailed off, holding her by the shoulders with wide eyes brimming with tears, panting and looking at MiM, then to Anna, then to MiM.

Then to Anna.

"Is that the Man in the Moon?"He asked deadpan. Anna nodded. "That is literally the coolest thing I have ever experianced, and I was frozen in a lake for a few hundred years."

Jack looked to MiM, who chuckled and nodded to Jack.

"It's been awhile, child." MiM greeted, and Jack looked torn between fainting and asking for an autograph. And Anna just wanted to hug him again, to wrap him up and shout apologies. But the others were there, and there was so much more to tell all of them, so much more to explain. She saw them all, looking in awe from Anna to MiM, all panting and in disbelief. All of them.

Except North.

Anna saw him and froze, a painful jolt going through her core. She saw him and expected a tongue-lashing, she expected to be thrown out again, she expected the worst.

The others slowly parted around them, everyone watching with Anna and North seeing only the other. Anna felt a lump in her throat and tried to swallow it down, but it hurt and only made the threat of tears worse. She bunched her hands into fists, then flattened them against her legs. And when she saw North, all he was doing was looking her up and down. As if he couldn't believe his own eyes.

And then he got to her face, to her eyes, and she saw him let out a shaky breath, tears filling his eyes and the swords falling to the snow beside him. He wasn't angry. He wasn't hateful. He was relieved. After all this time, after all that had happened, North was reaching his arms out for a hug. He was waiting for her to come home again. And Anna, for the first time since she could remember knowing this life she had led, was ready to go home too.

Half because she needed to know this was real, half to hide the tears quickly threatening to come pouring out, Anna sprinted forward through the snow and the icy cold air and ran hard into North's arms. She slammed against his stomach and wrapped her arms as far around him as she could, and she felt his huge arms wrap around her like tree trunks. Like warm tree trunks securing her to him, keeping her home, not letting her fall away again. She buried her face in his chest and gripped him hard with her hands. If it hurt him, he didn't let on.

"My little bluebird,"North muttered, voice straining, "I am so, so sorry." Anna shook her head.

"Shut up and keep hugging me. This is nice. I need this. Like, every-day need this." She croaked into his chest, and North laughed like she knew he could and he wrapped her tighter, almost painfully, but she didn't care.

"Of course." He promised, and she could hear sniffling that was either Tooth or Aster, and she was too embarrased to look. North laughed again, releasing her to look her in the face and smooth hair back, wiping tears from her flushed cheeks as he did. He was smiling through glassy eyes and panting breaths, and he looked for a moment over her head to where she assumed MiM now stood. When he looked back to her, amoungst the relief, there was pride and love and excitement.

"You have a lot of telling to do, little Anastasia." He said with a smile, and Anna took in a breath an nodded.

"Yeah, yeah I guess I do. But can we please go inside? I've seen enough ice and snow to last me the rest of eternity."