Well, I only got one review on the last chapter, but I didn't want to be a big meanie and hold this chapter for a week just because I didn't get more. *snickers* Thank you to the one reviewer though. I appreciate that. :) I'd imagine it was just my fault for uploading that last chapter at the wrong time of day so hardly anyone saw it. That happens, and the last chapter hasn't gotten many hits yet. *shrugs* My fault. No one else's. *chuckles*

I also wanted to make sure to get this chapter in before the weekend since people hardly ever seem to log on during the weekends, so here you go. I hope you enjoy it! Sorry for the slight delay, haha.

Disclaimer: I still don't own ROTG. If you thought I did, then I think you need to look up the definition of fanfiction. *snickers*

"Jack? Can you still hear me? I just… I just wanted to let you know that I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry."

"What do you have to be sorry for, Jamie?" I said from my observing position in one of my shards, but of course I didn't get an answer. I could hear Jamie. Heck, Chaos could hear Jamie. But Jamie couldn't hear me. I had no idea why, and it was breaking my heart. Was Chaos blocking my words from getting out? If he was, he was so going to pay when I got my body put back together and we caught him.

"There's a shard about two yards west of where you're standing," I said to Brent. "It's surrounded by a patch of rubble. It might be hard to see the shard from here."

"I see where you're talking about," said Brent. He and Amanda meandered over to the rubble and began pawing through it for several minutes, Amanda exclaiming in joy when she pulled out the piece of me they were looking for.

"Okay," I said, relieved at having another piece found. "There's another piece of me over at—"

"I think we should try assembling the shards we've got first," said Brent. "We're getting too many to just carry in our arms without putting some of them back together."

"Oh, um… alright." I coughed, not entirely sure how to make my response to this sound intelligent. "But how are you going to make the shards stick to each other?"

"I'll make do with whatever I can find," he said. "Pine sap, honey, a random bottle of Elmer's glue that just happens to be lying on the ground, or whatever else. I'll tear our clothes apart and tie you back together if we have no other way."

I chuckled from the awkward mental image of my being tied together with strips of fabric from their clothes and leaving a half naked Brent and Amanda behind. But I was strangely touched. Brent was absolutely determined to get me back, despite how much work it was taking him to do so. He had really grown in the time since he'd been here, journeying with us.

"There was some sticky stuff in that creek we crossed," supplied Amanda, and I couldn't help but mentally smirk at her helpfulness right then. She had also grown a lot in the time we'd been together. She'd become a wiser girl, and Brent had opened up his heart. What had I done? Had I grown at all? I was the boy who never aged. Did that mean I never grew mentally either?

"Awesome! Thanks, Amanda." Brent hefted my shards that he'd collected back to the creek she had spoken of and then laid them all out along the bank of the creek. He reached into the creek and grabbed a handful of whatever it was that was sticky, but I could tell that he wasn't particularly concerned about what substance the stuff was made out of. He was more concerned with getting his friend back together, even if it meant smearing his hands with a substance that was potentially gross.

After trying out a few different positions with the shards, he finally found a few that interlocked perfectly, and he began to smear the sticky stuff on the edges of the shards to glue them back together. Once he placed them back together and the pieces had adhered properly, a strange thing happened.

I received a vision of a snow storm. A really intense one that I could barely see through. I was floating high overhead, my heart filled with a mountain of guilt and sadness that I couldn't shove away to regain control of the storm around me. Then I saw a car skidding out of control.

And just like that, the vision ended. But I had finally seen a glimpse of something I'd been trying to grasp for a while. "Brent?" I said. "That snow storm… I-I think I remember it."

"Good," he said. "I think." He then reached for another piece and spread the sticky substance on it and pressed another piece into place. It seemed he didn't find it very important that the snow storm was beginning to enter my memory at last. But I knew it was a phenomenal recovery.

And just like that, with the addition of a second shard, my mind flashed again, but this time to a different scene. I was trying to talk to North as he worked on some new creation of his, but he kept going back to his work and acting like I wasn't even there. A sense of foreboding cropped up in me as the memory faded. That hadn't seemed like a good thing.

Brent clicked several more shards into place, but they didn't come with their own separate memories. Maybe my mind was on memory overload and would need to take the time to recharge before I figured anything else out. It was a pity. I really wanted to know what was going on, at least as far as that scenario went. I doubted it would tell me why I was here, but it still seemed important somehow.

After he'd connected as many shards as he could with what he and Amanda had collected thus far, Brent asked me to direct him to some more of my shards, and he took along as much of that sticky bottom-of-the-creek stuff as he could, just in case. He and Amanda succeeded in collecting several more shards before I suddenly cried out in alarm.

"Chaos!" I said. "Right behind you. I saw a shadow dart that way and run up onto that cliff!"

He turned and looked where I'd directed, and after spending a moment being dismayed over the size of the cliff, grabbed Amanda's hand and said, "Come on, Amanda," and took off running toward the cliff. I didn't know whether we'd catch him this time, but I could only hope we'd at least get close.

It took Brent and Amanda quite some time to scale the cliff, but they managed it well enough in their own time. Sadly, that meant that Chaos was nowhere to be seen, but I kept my eyes peeled as the other two continued to collect pieces of me and stick them back together.

A piece clicked into place, and suddenly another memory was triggered. "Jack, I'm too busy to play. Leave me alone!" I stood watching Tooth direct her fairies to what seemed like all corners of the galaxy, my hand held out hopefully for some kind of recognition, but my face scrunching up in pain at the spiteful words she'd uttered. Then the memory faded. Why was I remembering such short snippets of memory? And why were they all so negative? What had happened recently that had made it so hard to deal with life?

Most of my face was assembled now, and parts of the rest of my body were starting to find their shape. There were still many more shards to collect, but Brent and Amanda were doing a phenomenal job. I still couldn't move, and I suspected I wouldn't be able to until every shard was connected, but it was a relief to at least feel myself coming back together, even though I felt for Brent having to lug my heavy body around everywhere.

"Why won't Chaos just put you back together already?" said Brent, rolling his eyes and huffing hard enough to blow his bangs out of his face. "He's supposedly not evil, right? And he's certainly capable of putting you back where you belong, so why isn't he doing it?"

I hesitated before I answered, because even I wasn't sure if I was right in my thinking. But I thought it was worth saying it even so, just in case it was something worth saying. "I-I'm getting my memories back, Brent. Sometimes when you put a shard in place, I remember something I've forgotten."

He raised an eyebrow at me. "Like the snow storm?"

"Yeah," I said quietly, then sighed. "Like that."

"Do you remember what caused it to get out of hand like that?"

"Ugh." I felt a lump form in my stomach, which was pretty phenomenal, because it meant I had a stomach again to feel a lump in. "Not entirely, but I think I'm starting to get a picture."

"Well, we'll keep collecting your shards and putting you back together, you keep working on those memories, and we'll all plot on how to beat the crap out of Chaos when we run into him, okay?"

I wasn't sure I wanted to agree to such brutal treatment of anybody, even if the person supposedly deserved it. I was normally even hesitant to beat up on Pitch, and I definitely knew he deserved it. Sometimes that was the only way to keep him from harming a child. But I didn't think the same applied to Chaos, considering how he'd been reacting to Amanda and Jamie.

I squeaked out a meek, "O-Okay," not sure if I was doing the right thing in agreeing with Brent's plan of revenge or not.

I directed them to a few more shards, and Brent slipped a couple more into place. Another memory washed over me. A continuation of the one I'd had with North. It seemed I'd gotten fed up with getting ignored by North and had grabbed one of his ice creations to play with, but got startled by an elf screaming about having his cookie stolen by another elf and promptly dropped the ice creation.

North then slammed his tools on the table and pointed at the door. "Get out!" I was too stunned to move, barely registering what had just transpired. So he marched over to me, picked me up by the shoulders, and shouted. "You ruin what you touch, you get out. Now get out! Out of my workshop!" He threw me out the door of his office and slammed the door behind. Then the memory faded, and I whimpered.

Amanda heard the pitiful sound coming from one of my shards, and so she picked up the shard and pet it as though that would help me feel better. "You okay, Jack?"

I sighed. "I just had a bad memory, Amanda. But I'm okay."

"Jack," said Brent, "I hate to break it to you, but you're still scattered all over the place. Let's save the false 'I'm okays' for when you're actually in one piece, hmm?" I gulped and just stared at him. I wasn't sure what to say, or even if I should. If I'd been able to move, my foot would probably have already been in my mouth.

Several minutes later, and I was calling for Brent's and Amanda's attention again. "I saw the shadow again! Chaos was running eastward. Come on, guys, we can catch him!"

Brent just sighed and rolled his eyes. "How about we get you put back together and then hunt down Chaos, okay? You're the only one fast enough to actually get to him before he disappears again."

"But—But—I—" My voice trailed off. He did have a point there, and I had no good counterargument. How were they to catch a being who could travel so fast if they didn't have magic at their disposal? Though I also wondered how we were supposed to catch him even if I was intact if I couldn't keep an eye on every point of the terrain. Chaos was not making this easy, though I don't know why I expected him to. He'd never made anything easy.

Brent attached another piece and I slid into another flashback. "Hey, Bunny, whatcha doin'?" I said.

"Leave me alone, Frostbite. I'm busy."

"But I could help," I said, and I hopped up onto a rock and grabbed a nearby egg and started scribbling on it. I didn't know what I was doing, and I soon realized that my scribblings were starting to strongly resemble snowflakes. It figured. But I was strangely proud of myself and showed my work to Bunny.

He grabbed the egg out of my hand and pointed to the entrance to his warren. "Jack, you're distracting me. Just get out of here before I go bloody mad, will ya?"

I cringed and stepped backward, not understanding his tone. "But I-I just wanted to—"

"OUT!" And he shoved me toward the exit, which I reluctantly went through. Then the memory faded. It was surprising how long this one was, but it was no more pleasant than the others. It seemed they were having a trend of me getting rejected by people I cared about. Why on Earth that was happening, I couldn't fathom. Not yet. I suspected I would understand eventually if this kept up.

Most of my body had been put back together by now, but those last stragglers of shards were in rather elusive places. It really was lucky that I could communicate with Brent and Amanda or it would have been hard to get myself whole again. Thinking about it, I realized that if we had some of Chaos's powers at our disposal, then there was the potential for me to just will myself whole again right then and there. But no matter what I tried, I just couldn't make it happen. Maybe my will wasn't as strong as Chaos's, and he wanted me to be shattered into pieces at the moment so I wouldn't come chasing after him. Or so I would regain my memories.

Another shard clicked into place with that signature click that meant I was going to get a memory, and I soon felt one wash over me, and I was in the presence of the Sandman. I was bouncing all around, telling him about one of my latest adventures and how excited I was about it, when he just pressed his finger to his mouth and went, "Shh!"

I covered my mouth with my hand, shocked that I hadn't remembered that his work was closely tied with sleep and therefore required silence. But I just couldn't stay silent for long. I had too much energy. I jumped up into the wind and began twirling around at the wind's will, laughing when the wind would spontaneously drop me for a while and then catch me at an unexpected place and whip me around to do it again.

Sandy turned and gave me what I can only describe as a dirty look, followed by another, "Shh!"

I quickly apologized and resumed sitting next to him quietly, but wandering minds need to be given something to do before they find something on their own, and my mind soon found an old childhood favorite song that I'd heard some kids singing recently, a lyric that made use of the tune from "Clementine".

"I found a peanut, found a peanut, found a peanut last night. Last night, I found a peanut, found a peanut last night.

"Cracked it open, cracked it open, cracked it open last night…"

Before I could finish the second verse, Sandy's hand whipped out and slapped me across the face, then pointed very decisively in the direction of away. I held my slapped face in shock, then shamefully made my way out of his presence, wishing I could just behave like the adult the rest of them were sometimes.

I gasped as the memory faded. I hadn't ever thought that I would recall the Sandman doing anything even slightly mean to one of his comrades. Being slapped was not something I would have expected, and even now I thought I could feel the sting of his hand across my cheek. What had I done to make him so mad? I knew he wanted me to be quiet and I'd failed in that endeavor, but had I really deserved that?

Brent now held the last few shards in his hands, and with a careful breath to improve his concentration, he began placing each one delicately in the places they belonged. I mentally winced every time a piece clicked into place, nervous that I was going to get flashed with another awful memory so soon after the last one. But nothing triggered anything thus far, despite my nervousness. I was tempted to tell Brent to wait on the last ones until I'd had a little distance from that memory, but he probably wouldn't have listened anyway.

One by one, the pieces clicked into place, until there was finally only one piece left. This was it. I would hopefully be able to move as soon as that piece was in place. Brent took a deep breath, put some sticky stuff on the shard, and then slid it into place. I gasped as my entire body suddenly convulsed into motion, the cracks disappearing as my body frantically scrambled for the air it so desperately craved, and I slipped into another memory.

Jamie was working diligently on some sort of model rocket, the kind that is so intricate that you have to use tweezers to put some of the pieces in place. I was perched on the edge of his bed, just watching and trying to involve Jamie in some sort of conversation. The Guardians had been treating me like crap the past week, and I longed for some friendly conversation from someone.

Jamie was so engrossed in his project that I started realizing that he wasn't hearing a word I was saying. I rolled my eyes and huffed a breath of air out the side of my mouth. I supposed I couldn't blame him, considering how into his projects he tended to get. But that didn't negate how badly I needed to talk to someone.

I hopped into the air and gently landed next to his project. He seemed annoyed by my proximity, but I pretended I hadn't seen that expression and knelt down next to him and his rocket anyway. "So what's this?" I grabbed a piece of the rocket and held it up so I could see it.

He grabbed the piece back out of my hand. "Don't touch that, Jack."

I picked up another piece. "What's this then?"

He grabbed that piece out of my hand as well. "I said don't touch."

I was a little miffed at his reaction, but was trying not to let it bother me. Sometimes it just seemed like the world as a whole tended to have bad days. Or weeks. Jamie wasn't likely to be immune, so I shouldn't get too mad at him for it. I leaned over the plans and tried and failed to read the steps. "So what are you doing now?"

He pushed my head back. "You're in the way, Jack."

I blinked to keep tears from coming, as I was pretty sure that Jamie didn't mean to be rude. I was just extra touchy from not having had very good relations with the other Guardians for the past week. That was all it was. I reached out and grabbed the nearest object in the hopes of calming myself down, which just happened to be the rocket itself.

"Jack! Put that down!"

My instincts compelled me to obey Jamie to the letter, and I dropped the offending object in a hurry. Unfortunately, dropping a fragile model rocket usually results in breakage, which was exactly what happened.

Jamie jumped to his feet, absolutely livid. "Why do you ruin everything you touch, Jack? Just get out of here and leave me alone!"

As I left the house with my head bowed like a hurt puppy, I thought that this was where the memory should have faded. But this time, instead of fading, it jumped. It was the next day, and I'd decided to try and make amends with Jamie. I'd recently pilfered some nice winter wear from North's workshop, and thought that a little gift would be a good invitation to go and romp in the snow.

I hopped in through his window and saw him studying really hard at his desk. "Hey, Jamie!" I waved to him. "I got you something. Wanna go sledding today?" I shrugged and walked up to him to see what had him so fascinated.

I never found out what the subject of study was, because he then scooted his chair out from the desk, jumped up from his seat and proceeded to run out of the room, but first running right through me. I gasped in shock and then stood catching my breath for several minutes. He hadn't seen me. He'd stopped believing. Jamie had stopped believing.

The memory faded, and my eyes flew open as I heard someone screaming, only to realize after a minute that it was my voice I was hearing. Jamie. I'd lost Jamie. The Guardians had all rejected me, and I'd lost Jamie too.

"Jack?" said Brent, peering down at me in my sniveling heap. "You okay?"

I pressed my hands over my eyes as I started bawling. No, I was not okay. I fully understood what had provoked me into losing control of the snow storm on that day now, and I almost wished I had never found out. I preferred to live in blissful ignorance that everyone I loved still loved me back. Now I wasn't even sure if I wanted to get out of this crazy land of Chaos or not.

Jamie. A nagging thought pricked at the back of my mind, but I couldn't process it at the moment, since I just hurt too much. Jamie. I'd lost Jamie.

Well, here's chapter twelve. Do any of you know what's going on yet? Some people can tell by this chapter, though not everyone can. I'm curious what your thoughts are.

Hmmm... hardly anyone seems to log on over Saturday and Sunday. Should I update during the weekend or not? Will you guys log on and read it then, or should I wait until Monday? The next two chapters are the heart of the climax and the ending of the story altogether. I don't really want them to be under appreciated by a bleh weekend. *chuckles* Feel free to let me know your thoughts on that.

Anyway, reviews would be really, really, really appreciated. I already really appreciate all the reviews I've gotten thus far, as well as all the faithful readers who have followed with me through this story. Sorry for being as needy on this story as I have been, but I'm unused to a story getting so few hits and I have no idea what's causing that. *chuckles* Makes me think people don't like this story, but I'm so glad I have a few faithful readers. *hugs* Thank you, guys! You have no idea how much I appreciate you!

In any case, I'll see you at the next chapter. Take care!