Second Chance Hero

by AnnaNymose

She wasn't very good at doing things correctly. She wasn't very good at what she was supposed to have done. And in all measures, she was not a hero by any means. Nor, though, was she the opposite, and so found herself floating in a grey area, between good and bad, between alone and surrounded, between life and death, between a darkness and a second chance.

12. Second Chance Hero

-This will be the final chapter in this adventure. I want to thank all of you who stuck with it and gave such positive feedback. I love you each so incredibly much. Enjoy. -

-Santoff Claussen, North Pole-

"He's going to use the fearlings to go after all of you. They know your fears, they are your fears. And because of that he'd going to be able to get into your heads in the worst possible ways. We have to find a way to get past them and to Pitch." Anna explained in a very surreal moment. She tried to articulate a coherent thought when MiM was sitting with them at a table, holding a candy-cane stripped mug of hot chocolate. A celestial being. Drinking coco.

"Why don't we just have you get them first?"Jack asked, and Anna shook her head.

"That's not gonna work. Fearlings...they aren't like nightmares. I need to physically see them, I can't just feel around for their presence because they aren't rooted in reality. They're manifestations of the mind. That's some deep shit right there, we can't depend on me." She explained, and looked down at her cup, the steam rolling up an onto her face. "...Listen," She continued, and the other Guardians looked her way, everyone focused on her, "...I'm sorry about what happened. And what I did. But you have to know that I wasn't working for Pitch when I was here."

"We know." Tooth said delicately, sitting next to Anna. North sat across from her, with MiM on her other side and Aster and Jack between North and Tooth. Anna sighed, rubbing the heel of her palm into the side of her head. She was exausted, physically, mentally, and emotionally.

"We'll find a way,"Aster said with full confidence, "and when Pitch decides he's ready for a do-over, we'll be there to fight him back. Just like old times."

"Except,"Anna sighed, "Pitch won't wait. He's got everything ready, I'm surprised we haven't heard from him yet. He's unpredictable when he's angry, so he could attack tonight or tomorrow or next week."

"I might have a solution, then." MiM's voice grabbed attention like a magnet, everyone looking up and at him, listening but also stunned that he was sitting there with them as if they were all old friends. As if he wasn't one of the greatest celestial beings they'd ever encountered. As if he weren't the Man in the Moon.

"Yes, Manny?"North asked, and MiM got a small smile that Anna gathered was from North's little nickname, and he sat up a bit in his perfect white suit, wrapping large and delicate-looking hands around a mug, eyes shining grey and looking at each of them as if they were the most beautiful things he'd ever seen.

"I've watched over Pitch for a very long time. I knew him before he was the Nightmare King, back when he was just a man making sacrifices. And if there's anything of that man left, it's his keen ability to foresee how an enemy will react. You all have a pattern of attacking as one, and then spreading out. He'll expect you to do the same thing. So my suggestion is that you do exactly that, begin together, but never spread. He will expect that, and he will pick you off together."

"But then how will we get to him? We can't take all of the nightmares on at once." Tooth argued lightly, and Sandy made fast pictures above his head, something Anna was still lost to.

"Sandy's right," North agreed, nodding, "Pitch knows we could use Jack or Manny to take care of nightmares. He won't send those after us, he will use fearlings, yes Manny?"

"Yes." MiM agreed, "I imagine he'll begin with a few nightmares to separate all of you, and then when you do separate he'll send the fearlings after each person individually."

"What happens when we don't split up, then? Won't he force us apart?"Jack asked, and Anna sat up a bit.

"Not if he doesn't notice." Everyone looked to her, and the idea was forming in her head as she spoke, "If we can get me to Pitch in the beginning, he won't see you guys staying together. Either the fearlings will be waiting or he'll send them out, either way you're all together. You can fight each other's fears for them, so no one has to take it on alone."

"What about you?" MiM asked quietly, and Anna looked at him. She felt that he already knew an answer, she just hoped that hers was the one he was looking for. She took a deep breath in and said,

"I can handle Pitch myself. If I can stop him, all the nightmares either turn and run or disintegrate."

"Stop him, as in..."Jack said, looking worriedly at Anna. She put her hands under the table and breathed deeply in and out. MiM waited, watching her, and she bit her lip. She shook her head.

"I'm not going to kill Pitch." She said almost defiantly, "I'm going to try and find his connection to the current nightmares. It's a long shot, it might not even be something tangible that I can find, but if I can then that's it. He'll have to start all over again, no nightmares this time. No fearlings, either." She looked up.

MiM was giving her a soft smile.

"Manny will be watching out for you." North insisted, a look of worry in his eyes, but Anna shook her head.

"He has to stay with all of you in case something goes wrong. Pitch won't hurt me too bad, but he doesn't have as many reservations about all of you. Remember, for a period of time I was all that Pitch had for company. That may not seem like much, but when you're used to being alone...it means something. I'll be safer than any of you, and as far as I know Pitch doesn't have MiM's fearling made."

Anna didn't believe everything she said. The company thing, yes. But at this point, she wasn't sure at all how Pitch would treat her. He could very well want to kill her more than he wanted to so much as touch the other guardians. She could be his target this time. She just didn't know, but the Guardians couldn't tell her doubt. She didn't look at MiM to see if he could. There was nothing he could do on the subject anyway, she had made up her mind. She had done the most damage, if she took the most it was only fitting.

"Very well," North agreed, though he looked like he had more to say on the matter, "when Pitch attack, we will be ready. But as precaution, someone should go an watch over Jamie and the little one, in case Pitch wants to lure us in with them."

"I'll go." Jack offered.

"Me too." Anna added in, and North nodded.

"Very good, then. Sandy and I will relieve you two if Pitch does not attack by morning, yes? Jack, take snowglobe in case." He instructed as Jack and Anna stood back from the table, and handed the snowglobe to Jack. Aster caught Anna's eye, and in a moment of mutual apology, he nodded. She nodded back.

Anna and Jack walked to the top of the stairs, Anna ready to grab Jack's arm as he prepared to take off. He liked flying better, she realized, than using the snowglobe. She would have to have a serious discussion with MiM about why she got jilted on the whole 'flying' aspect of supernatural powers.

"Anna, wait, I have something for you." North called, and she turned around. MiM and the others were still in the room that they'd just left, but North was striding over to her with something in his hand. She looked back at Jack, and he nodded with a light-hearted smile. Anna then walked and met North halfway through the overlook. He smiled quietly at her, looking down to his large hand as he held it out to her. When Anna looked down, the fingers unfurled and revealed something tiny, something gold.

She had to bite her lip to keep it from shaking, and a lump formed in her throat. Quietly, she took the tiny golden telescope that must have gotten lost when she left. She held it, considerably larger in her hands, and took in a deep breath. She didn't look at North, fearing that if she did then everything would go to hell and she'd end up bawling. What she did instead was pocket the little telescope and rest her forehead on his stomach. His large arms wrapped slowly around her and his fingertips rubbed her back.

"I missed you." He said quietly, and Anna knew that he wasn't just referring to the most recent hiatus. He was talking about centuries. Even before she left for the first time. He missed the Anna that she'd started out as. And maybe, just maybe, she was back, even if there were other layers in there. Blinking and swallowing, Anna nodded and stepped back. Without looking at him, she nodded again and said quietly,

"Thank you."

When she got back to Jack, he was smiling and raising his brows.

"Sap." He teased as she held onto his arm. She pinched him.

-Burgess-

The night was quiet. All of the usual noise was stifled under thick blankets of snow, hushing the world beneath and making everything seem so much more beautiful. Unfiltered stars shone against a black sky, white-coated houses stood out in grey outlines, and a fresh, cold breeze would stir the snow every once and a while and make the top layer of glittering snow dance up before settling back with the mounds it came from.

"Everything seems too nice for a war to happen."Jack reasoned, laying back in the snow on the roof of Jamie's house. Anna was sitting in a spot she'd cleared, her arms wrapped around her legs and taking in the night.

"There's a really cool quote about that, but I just can't think of it right now."

"Hey, Anna?"

"Hm?" She looked over, and Jack was looking up at the sky with his arms folded behind his head. He looked like a child laying in bed.

"Why did you come with me that day? With all of this that you thought could happen, why did you still agree?" He asked, and Anna paused a moment. Then she looked back out to the sky and buried a hand in the white cloth around her neck.

"I got tired of you stalking me."

Jack laughed and understood what she meant. She smiled with him.

"Thank you, though," She continued, "for what you did. I don't think you knew exactly how much it meant at the time. Not just bringing me back to North, but for...you know, being a friend. I needed one that wouldn't go away."

"I just remembered what it was like being alone, how much I wanted a friend, too. I could be a real pain, but I wanted someone. I knew you were kinda the same, even if you had Pitch." Jack trailed off at the end, and Anna nodded quietly, thinking. Jack was silent for a few beats, and then continued, "Was he really your friend?"

He didn't have to use a name, Anna knew who he meant. And she had to think hard over her answer.

"...It was something else. I think it was a co-dependency. We needed each other for different reasons, and that's why it was so hard for me to leave, and for him to let me go."

"...You're not sure that he won't hurt you this time." Jack, Anna had to admit, could see more than anyone had ever given him credit for. She patted his stomach while still looking at the stars, and sighed.

"No, Jack, I'm not sure. Not even a little. I think I hurt him worse than either of us thought was possible, but I had not other choice."

"I don't want to lose you." Jack said quietly, wrapping her hand in his. "I haven't had a friend like you in a long time. I mean, the others are family, but...you know what I'm saying?"

Anna laughed and nodded, squeezing his hand back.

"Yeah, Jack, I now what you mean. I won't let anything happen to either of us, okay? I promise. This time, there's gonna be a fresh start at the end of this chaos. And we'll all live happily ever after."

"The end."Jack teased, and they both laughed through their fear. Two children, two lonely, scared children on a rooftop, who were about to fight something that they hardly knew, were making hopeful promises to each other. That was the thing about fear. It made anything seem possible.

-A Cave Near Burgess-

Around him, the Nightmares hoofed the ground and snorted, fearlings jetting across the walls like headlights on speeding cars. And Pitch sat in a high-backed chair, looking at the globe before him, at all the little lights. And his fingers clutched at the arm rests and he closed his eyes against the bright light. He felt anger, certainly. Betrayal, fury, a need for revenge. And Pitch felt an ache deep in his heart.

He knew who had put it there. And he knew the only way to make it go away.

Pitch knew how this was going to end.

"Lovelies," He muttered quietly, and the shadows and nightmares stilled around him, eyes opening and glaring forward at the globe, a seething fury building inside of him, "it's time to take back this world."

There was a rushing sound in Pitch's ears.

-Burgess-

"Nothing?" Jack asked, waking up around four in the morning. Anna shook her head, not even a bit tired.

"Nothing. Wanna tell North or wait awhile longer?" She asked, and Jack shrugged.

"Doesn't look like anything's going down tonight, but who knows? Let's wait a bit longer, I'll stir up some snow for the kids so they don't have school tomorrow." Anna smiled and elbowed him.

"Jack Frost, ruining education since the colonial days." He rubbed at his ribs good-humoredly, picking up the staff and standing up on the roof. Anna looked forward, about to relax. She was watching the shadows.

And the shadows were watching her.

"Jack!" Anna shouted, and stood up fast enough to knock him back onto the roof as something black with flaming red eyes ripped across the space above them. He called out and grabbed her, pushing back off the roof and both of them tumbling awkwardly to the street, rolling and stumbling to their feet. Anna, heart pounding, looked up at the roof to see the nightmare getting to its feet, head down and black smog floating from its nostrils. From the corners of the house, more nightmares arrived, and from behind them even more.

Anna knew Pitch couldn't have many left. This was the last wave, and the most desperate, and the most dangerous. She stepped forward, scanning around, feeling, trying to find him.

"Jack." Anna said in a moment of stillness, right before the war began, both sides of the line watching the other in a respite.

"Yeah?"

"Call North." She said, and this time it was Anna who started it.

She didn't take them all at once, but she had a bias against the one on the roof. Heart pounding and adrenaline searing her veins, she shot out a hand and felt the string intertwine with her fingers, lacing itself into her bones and cementing its fibers on her skin. The nightmare reeled back, hooves held high in the air, and Anna jerked her arm back violently. It fell without a sound, crashing onto the roof as the others instantly took up its place.

"Jack, now!" Anna shouted, and he shot up into the air with the snowglobe in his hand. Anna couldn't see what he did, the nightmares charging her and the strings, the metaphorical and intangible things connecting every living thing, forming a kind of spiderweb around her. She pulled at it like a fly caught in a trap, turning and watching as black sand scattered in heaps across the ground, rolling like thousands of microscopic marbles across the ground.

What must have taken Jack a few moments felt like it took years, and by the time Anna saw a white streak of frost shoot over the closest line to her, she was relieved.

"Took you long enough, Snowflake!" Anna shouted breathlessly, and Jack landed behind her.

"I've got it from here, go look for Pitch!" He shouted, and Anna shook her head, Jack breaking the first layer of ice and shattering the nightmares inside, only to have the other ranks come pouring in.

"Not leaving you here!" Anna managed to call, black teeth and red eyes gnashing at her, getting too close for comfort. For a terrible moment, her heart beat too hard and she wondered if this plan would actually work at all. She wondered if they'd gotten in over their heads, if the others couldn't get there in time. If she'd led them into another trap.

And then a boomerang came spinning through her line of vision, taking out an entire line of nightmares on the streets where no one seemed to notice the war going on outside, and Anna followed it back to its owner. Aster and Tooth jumped into the fray, Tooth accompanies by what looked like hundreds of tiny versions of herself, green and purple and gold feathers darking through the nightmares like tiny, beautiful bullets. She could hear North shouting somewhere, and gold dreamsand caught her perifrial vision.

"Go, Anna." MiM said to her, and she turned to see him standing beside her. No nightmares could touch him, she saw, as a beam of moonlight fell over him. They screamed terribly and bucked away from it, snarling and snapping their jaws at a MiM who was only looking at Anna. "I can't fight these creatures like you can, I can only ensure that no one gets hurt. But you're the one that can end this." His eyes held so much trust and so much faith that Anna herself felt most of her fears draining away.

And she nodded.

"Where is he?" She asked.

"That way. Waiting for you." He said, pointing to Anna's left. She couldn't see past the waves of nightmares that filled the unknowing streets, but she knew MiM was right. Pitch was there. She didn't look back, she didn't say anything, because she felt that if she did look back that she would see all of this crumbling, that if she saw her friends being overpowered then she couldn't go through with her part of this.

The world was in chaos around them, and she wondered how no one knew. The world was about to change, and they were sleeping. And yet all of this responsibility landed on Anna's shoulders.

"I've got you!"Jack shouted, and aimed the staff at the thinnest line of nightmares. Frost splintered out across nightmares, creating beautiful sculptures of terrible things, and Anna didn't wait for him to break them. She ran forward, heaving herself up and jumping across the backs of motionless nightmares. With her adrenaline she was able to throw herself into an alley before the nightmares found out what she was doing, and took off down the narrow street.

She was running, her feet echoing off houses, and the sounds of battle seemed like they were another world away. But her friends were there, and so how could she be here? Why wasn't she with them? She knew the answer, and she knew that what she had to do was important, but part of her would rather be with them. She would rather be standing with North and feeling every hit, every bite, just to know that he was there with her. To be certain that he was okay.

In the darkness of the alley, she got none of that.

When she got halfway down, about to turn the corner to where Pitch should have been, she stopped. Her footsteps came to a halt and the echoes silenced, her breathing all that could be heard in the narrow alley. To her right, sounds of war cascaded through the night, but where she was surrouned her with a bubble of silence. And something struck a chord in her, something familiar fell over the air around her. She closed her eyes, said something silently, and then called out,

"This isn't how it has to go, you know."

From behind her, she felt someone walk up, keeping their distance. She was looking at houses in front of her, and behind her someone she knew almost better than herself was looking at her.

"We both know that's not true. This is the only way it can go." His voice had none of the cockiness that it did when he spoke to North or MiM or anyone else for that matter. And for a moment, she was wondering if he were doing it on purpose, because for just a second it brought her back, and for all anyone else knew they could have been back in the cave and none of this madness could have happened.

For a moment, it was like they pressed rewind. And then there was the sound of a loud shout, and Shawna was reminded that there was no rewind. This was all they had now, and Pitch was right. She just wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. She turned around, seeing Pitch standing in the darkness, his hands at his sides and a hard, pained frown on his face. His eyes were dark and his face looked ready.

"I have a question." Anna said, and he narrowed his eyes. Whatever was about to happen, she had to know one thing, "Why did keep me after you failed?" Pitch looked like he was going to say something for a moment, his mouth open, and then he paused. Pitch looked at her, up and down, and then a kind of resignation came over his face. And Anna knew she was about to hear the truth.

"Because you were all I had left."

Those words hung between them, and the worst part was that neither of them could do anything about them. They were said far too late, and now they held only the power to make them think of what could have been. And it hurt, but it needed to be said.

And Anna nodded, because that was the reason she always came back.

She almost didn't see when Pitch's finger twitched and his face tightened, but just in time she caught the shadow that ripped itself from the shadow of the house next to her. She stumbled backwards and reached out, snapping the string the moment it touched her. But Pitch wasn't done, and this attack wasn't going to be a kind one. It was going to be the last effort of someone who now, truly had nothing left.

It filled her ears, the sound of the rushing, living shadows behind her. Gasping, she spun around and reached out her hands, only able to do minimal damage before she was hit in the chest by what felt like a cement wall, sending her crashing backwards and sending an ache through her back.

"We could have been great, Anna," Pitch's voice filled her head as she slowly and achingly rolled sideways, out of the way of the torrent of shadows that hit the ground and rose back up like some kind of black snake, "we could have had the entire world for ourselves. I never understood why that was such a terrible thing."

"Well, that's because you're an incredibly unstable individual." Anna retorted, and felt her back scrape against a wall as she backed up, the shadows inches from her face as she finally managed to find the invisible strings tying them to this world, ripping them apart as they fell to the ground. "And I know that you can't have a lot of that left in you."

"Maybe I don't," Pitch's voice came from right behind her and she jumped forward. When she turned, Anna felt something slam into her face, sending her back but not letting her fall. It held her there in midair, like an icy, shadowy hand that had no substance and yet a firm, almost suffocating grip. She wrapped her hands into the shadows, searching for its life, trying to find that one thing that they all had. "Or maybe I have just enough left for one last hoorah."

His voice was bitter, and when Anna opened her eyes and saw the look in them, she knew what was going to happen. Unfortunately, she wasn't fast enough to stop it. Even if she had wanted to.

The shadows let go of her neck, and the next time she saw them they were piercing through her chest, running her straight through from her back to her front. Now, with something like this, there was no blood. That was messy, that was something that a physical thing could do to you. What these shadows did was much worse. Anna gasped but no air found her lungs, and suddenly she was on her knees.

Her chest felt weak, too weak, and everything inside her felt cold. She grasped at her ribs, doubling over and trembling. This hurt more than she expected it to. It wasn't a painful hurt, it was a hurt that you felt to your bones. It was the kind of hurt that made someone want to be sick. It was a hurt that felt different because it wasn't skinning a knee or bumping a toe. This was a hurt that lasted.

This was the kind of hurt that knew how to do its job.

Shoes, black and clean, came into her line of vision as she struggled for air, as she grabbed at her ribs as if doing any of that could help relieve what she felt. Her hands shook and her lungs were on fire, and it felt like someone had frozen a solid block of ice over her heart. She wheezed, not able to look up, barely able to see the street below her. Above her, the only clear thing was a voice.

"I think it's important that you know something, Anna." Pitch's voice was quiet, and it was only the two of them in the world. "I don't want to do this." She felt something in the air above her, and she squeezed her eyes shut. She clenched her teeth together to keep herself from saying something that could have made everything end so much differently, something that could have spoken a thousand words in just a few. But she couldn't. The others were fighting for her. She couldn't let herself have this.

I don't want to do this, either.

-Burgess-

North closed his eyes against the fearlings, feeling a boomerang strike by his face. He took labored breaths, but knew he couldn't rest long. Jack needed him, and he needed Aster, and Aster needed Tooth who needed Sandy. They were fighting whatever didn't look like a fear to them, whatever didn't send an aching sense of dread to their bones. They were backed up to one another, and that was all that gave North strength to keep going, knowing that his friends were still there with him.

A fearling, tall and mangled and dripping black plasma, rose slowly out of the ground, its eyes on Jack. When North saw it, he was struck to the bone with a sense of loneliness, and for a moment he forgot who he was with. It was an unbelievable sense of solitude, and it almost did him in. He lost his breath, he blinked and grit his teeth, raising up a sabre just as the fearling stepped closer to Jack. Jack, who was shooting a blinding streak of frost to a fearling that had taken on the look of black dreamsand, though they knew that wasn't possible. Jack was fighting Sandy's nightmares, and North was fighting Jack's.

The fearling was so focused it never saw the blade fly through it's chest, and all that could be heard was a deafening screeching sound as it toppled backwards, flailing like an insect trying desperately to break free of a web before erupting in black smoke, drifing into the air like ribbons of smog. North let out a breath, keeping a firm grip on the sabres.

"North." MiM's voice came out of the quiet. North looked forward at MiM, who was splaying out his arms and casting a thin border of moonlight against the few remaining nightmares, keeping them at bay from the Guardians. He gave North a serious look with his light, angelic face, and North's heart sank.

"Is she...?"He whispered, voice trembling. But MiM shook his head.

"No, but I believe I know what's she's planning. Hold on just a bit longer."

"Will she be okay?" North asked, imagining Anna alone with Pitch. She had looked so strong when she ran into the alley, eyes hard and a fire about how she moved. She looked like someone who wasn't afraid of the world anymore. North wanted to see that for a very long time. He didn't want that fire to be put out when he was so far away from her. MiM looked away, as if feeling something, and then back to North.

He said nothing, and that was almost worse than what North was expecting. He shook his head, taking a step forward, but MiM stopped him with his words.

"They need you here, Nicholas." MiM said with a serious tone but a pained look in his eyes. North stopped, hands gripping the handles tight and eyes pleading. "She needs you here." MiM finished, and North had a moment where he could have run. He could have taken off and gone to her and helped her. He could have. But he didn't.

North, teeth pressed together hard enough to make Tooth faint, nodded and turned back to his friends, each fighting so hard, each panting and strained and terrified. He couldn't leave them. And he wouldn't. But as he charged head-first as Sandy's fear, he had only one thought in his mind: That if he did make it out of this, it would mean nothing if Anna did not join him.

-An Alley in Burgess-

She felt it come towards her, and Anna took the moment of stillness to let all of her sadness pass. All of her pain. She let it pour into the ground. And then she rolled out of the way faster than Pitch could have predicted.

He called out, Anna rolling to her feet and watching as a spear of black, jagged shadow sunk into the ground violently, right where her back had just been. Pitch stood as if in shock, hand wrapped around a handle and eyes wide. It all happened so fast. He couldn't have seen. He didn't even have time to look over to her.

Working almost on autopilot, with one last surge of adrenaline and a shout, Anna shot herself up from her feet and catapulted herself at Pitch. With his hand still on the spear, Anna's hand made hard contact with his chest and he jolted back. Not enough to release his grip, and so Anna had her hand pressed hard against his chest, her own body close to his bent one. She felt his shock, felt his chest tighten beneath her palm.

She had found it, right in his heart. Right where she'd always expected it to be. That thread of darkness that pervaded his body, connected to what was left of his army. It felt different, it felt stronger, but to Shawna it also felt so incredibly tired. It felt old. And she would have given anything for it not to have seemed so easy to break. It was too loose, it fell into her skin too easily, and she couldn't do it for a moment.

When this moment came, she expected that she would rip out the thread, knowing that someday it would grow back, and mourn later. But now, she couldn't do it. Not just yet. Because she didn't want it to be so easy, she didn't want to have full control over this.

Pitch wasn't even fighting back against her. He knew she had it. He knew what was going to happen. And this man that she had known so well, this man that had once been a general, who had a family and fought what now controlled his entire existence, this man that had been something so close to her that she didn't even have a name for it, now she had to take everything away from him. And she saw in that moment how different things could have been had he not been so manipulated by the shadows in his heart.

Frustrated, Anna rested her head against his collarbone, feeling hot and angry tears slipping down her face. It wasn't fair, she thought, that she got a second chance and he didn't. She took in a shaky breath, thinking of times when he had helped her sleep and put her mind at ease. In quiet moments when they would just sit and be with the other. When their existences only needed the other. She thought about how much she didn't want to do this. Pitch still hadn't moved, and she felt his heartbeat beneath her hand.

"I have to do this." She whispered with a cracking voice. Pitch's hand, slowly, came up and rested on the back of her head. It was gentle.

"I know." He breathed, and Anna shut her eyes tight. Then, like pulling off a bandage, she gripped his chest and pulled her hand back as hard as she could. She felt it snap off in her hand and Pitch gave a pained grunt, jerking forward and his body tremoring quickly. Loudly she breathed in and gripped his chest again, this time for balance for the two of them. Pitch's hand was still on the back of her head, and she heard the sounds of fighting and screaming drop off like someone had hit a mute button. Near them, shadows silently trickled away.

And Anna knew what she'd done.

"I'm sorry." She whispered. "I wanted the world too."

Pitch paused, and she was afraid for a moment that he couldn't speak. But his fingers laced through her hair and she heard him speak,

"Just not the world I wanted." Anna breathed out, and shook her head.

"No." She agreed. And she waited there a moment longer, until Pitch's hand left her head and she had to step back. She didn't know what she expected, but when she saw his skin almost pale, his eyes almost a flat grey, she was surprised. He didn't look weak, but he did look...drained. As if he hadn't really slept in years. He stood with his head down, another hand on his chest where hers had been. He closed his eyes as if experiancing a moment of pain, and then collected himself.

Pitch looked at Anna without anything to use against her anymore. She didn't know how long it would take him to become this powerful again. She didn't know if he ever could. She didn't know what the future held.

"I don't want this to be the end." She said, and Pitch, for what it was worth, gave a small smile. A small bitter, but true, smile.

"We don't always get what we want, dear." His voice seemed to be quiet against his own wishes, and she swallowed, hands laying at her sides.

"You know, you get second chances too."

"I'm not a hero, Anna."

"You don't have to be." She looked into his eyes, knowing he was going to leave soon, knowing her friends were waiting for her. "You just have to come back to me."

There was a moment of silence between them, and Pitch breathed out, quirking a brow.

"Do you imagine it's that easy?"He asked almost jokingly. Anna shook her head.

"I don't know."

Pitch let out a breath again, this time to help himself stand straight, and gave her a last look before he turned and began to walk into a shadow-drenched alley attatched to theirs. Anna stood, watching him walk, and right before he dissapeared she called out,

"Pitch!" He stopped, and then he looked over his shoulder.

"Anna."

And that was all that had to be said. Because that was all that was left. With another brief moment, Pitch turned and left, and Anna went the other way. As she walked, one arm wrapped around her still-aching chest, she heard North's voice calling her name. She didn't answer, not just yet, she waited until she got back onto the street and saw them all. She counted, and they were all there, looking tired but not broken or hurt.

"Hey." She said quietly, but North heard her. He whipped his head around and saw her, eyes brightening and dropping the swords in each hand. He looked exauhsted, and yet he still barreled towards her and wrapped his huge, tree-trunk arms around her.

"Anna! Bluebird, you are okay! Oh, thank MiM!"

"You're welcome."MiM said lightly, and Anna couldn't believe she was laughing with tears still drying on her face, but she was. And North was laughing too, squeezing her tighter and tighter until she told him how bad her chest hurt. He stepped back, everyone surrounding them, Jack wrapping an arms around her sideways and squeezing lightly. She smiled into the face of the boy that had brought her back home.

The street was empty, and if anyone looked out their windows now they might not know that a war had just started and ended.

"Well, Anna,"MiM said with a smile, looking a bit tired himself, "I cannot say how proud I am of you. My strong child, who was born out of loss. You just saved the world." Anna gulped, panting, resting sideways on Jack.

"Not bad." Aster complimented, and they looked at each other before bursting into laughter.

"Not bad your furry butt, Bunny." Anna panted, and Sandy gave a thumbs-up to everyone, Tooth sniffling and holding back happy tears. Her babyteeth settled either on Jack's or her shoulders, and Anna rubbed her face.

"So what happens now?" Jack asked, and MiM raised his brows.

"Now? Now, my children, you go back to doing what you do best. Bring joy to others. Bring them hope and wonder and happy memories. For now, all you have is a world of children. Protecting it doesn't end with one vigilante fight, you know." MiM smiled and winked at Jack, who relaxed a bit. The moonlight around MiM began to thin, began to grow into one narrowed column.

"You're leaving?" Tooth asked, sounding dissapointed. MiM looked up at the moon as if he were surprised himself, but eventually did smile. He looked back an nodded, holding his arms out.

"It's my time now. You've done better than I ever could have expected. To share a little secret with all of you, the real reason I came down was because I knew in my heart that this was going to be your greatest triumph yet. I only wanted to be here to see you succeed. To see you become a family stronger than ever before."

"I needed you," Anna said, MiM looking to her with a light, knowing smile, "thank you." She said, and it was a thank you for many things. MiM winked and turned to North, who was panting and tired and covered in sweat, but looked like he couldn't have been happier had he been told that Christmas would come twice a year.

"Nicholas St. North, I put you and Anna into each other's lives for a reason. Take good care of each other. From now on, I don't know what the future has in store for you. But I know it will be great, and I cannot wait to see it." MiM assured North, who nodded.

"I am always one call away." North teased, and MiM chuckled. The moonlight above him grew thicker, and he sighed, looking back out at all of them. Anna had to admit that she felt an echo of sadness that he was leaving, even if he would always be there at night, even if she had everyone else now with her. MiM, just as the light almost blocked him out and everyone had to squint in order to look directly at him, turned to Anna.

"You will make a great Guardian some day." He said quietly, and with that the moonlight swallowed him up and he was gone, the column of light dissapearing and leaving an empty space where the Man in the Moon had once stood. Anna was panting, smiling, and running a hand across the side of her face. North was looking at her as if he had never been more proud, and he held his hand out to her.

Jack stepped aside as she took it, both squeezing the other's hands.

"You heard? You will be Guardian some day!" North said in reverence, and Anna, for the first time, didn't think that was such a crazy idea.

"Yeah, well, not better than me, but you'll get somewhere." Aster teased, and Tooth playfully punched his arm just as the sound of a front door slammed through the night. Everyone turned just in time to see Jamie and Sophie running across the lawn, looks of excitement on their faces.

"Jamie! Sophie!" Jack exclaimed as they ran up, Sophie jumping directly into Aster's arms.

"Did you see it? The light? What was that, was it aliens? Was it Pitch? Why are you all here? What happened?" Jamie shot off questions at a million miles and hour, and Anna rested her side against North.

"Tired?" He teased, and she looked up at him with a smile, one hand holding the white cloth around her neck.

"Not even a little." Anna and North, now four centuries older, both laughed.

-Five Centuries Ago-

Anna brushed off the snowman, and North stood beside her and surveyed the work. They both smiled at it, standing in the night snow, surrounded by the flickering candles in the tiny homes of village not too far away.

"It's magnificent." North admired, and Anna shook her head with a smile. North found wonder in the strangest things. She looked up at the sky, at the stars that littered the black backdrop, swirrling and dotting and lighting the darkness around them. It was beautiful. "Ah, yes, look at the world right now, Anna. It is such a wonderful thing, isn't it?" He asked, and Anna breathed out into the night air.

"Think it'll always be this way?" She asked, and North brushed snow off of the top of her head.

"With you in it? No." He said, and when Anna looked up at him he smiled. "I think, with a hero like you, this world that we know will become something even better than what it is now. I just hope, when that time comes, that I will be there to see what kind of things you bring to this world."

"You'll be there." Anna smiled.

"You think?"North asked teasingly. She looked back up at the sky, at the moon that shone the brightest.

"Yeah," She breathed, "I do."