A/N: We're going back a couple of days. This is right after chapter 10 (with Bunny and North).
End of chapter 13:
"Come on," Jack urged. "Talk more about Christmas and coal. What's December 25th?"
He ran up to the pair and gazed curiously at them both. It would take a long time to get answers out of these people. But he had to try.
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
"Wait, wait!" Tooth called, zooming in front of Bunnymund before he could jump down a rabbit hole. "Hold on, Bunny." She fell to the floor and brushed herself off.
"You can't do that," she said.
Bunnymund was genuinely confused. "Do what?"
Toothiana sighed and stepped from one foot to the other, restless as a child. "Really, Bun?"
"Bun? My name is Bunnymund-"
"Tell me about Jack Frost!" she urged, tapping his nose twice. "Come on!"
"There's nothing to tell," he protested, shooing her hand away.
Bunnymund had arrived in Tooth's palace, telling her to cancel the search for Jack Frost. He had hastily explained in very minimal detail about his encounter with the winter spirit, and his discovery of the resurrection. But now he said there were other things at hand, like starting to prepare for Easter. There were eight days until Christmas, and Bunnymund knew that once the New Year passed, there would be nonstop preparation until April.
Toothiana had other ideas.
"You said you met him," Tooth said flatly, crossing her thin feathered arms. Her wings twitched as one's fingers might in anticipation. Bunnymund pressed his lips together and gave her an equally tenacious look. "You met him, Bunny, and I want to know the details, stat."
Bunnymund sighed. She was just like a teenage girl, which, he had to admit, she was. Even younger than Jack, her mind was a frenzy of this and that, determination and excitement. She was into the now now now and could easily get caught up in the explanation and importance of dental care ("you ever smell a dog's breath?" was one of her favorite arguments).
"I just want to know," she urged.
Her expression was to die for. Not only childish and eager, but depressing, because Bunnymund knew that if he told her, she would press on and on, until she heard the cold truth about Jack Frost's existence.
"Fine," Bunnymund said finally. "Okay. Alright. Just... do you have anywhere to sit?"
Toothiana flew three feet into the air with excitement and nodded enthusiastically. She buzzed away for a few moments but returned with a comfortable-looking chair. It was just the right size and proved to be better than it looked.
"Come on, Bunny... I'm gettin' impatient here! I've got a job to do."
He almost snapped back with a, "so do I!" but thought better of it. Instead, Bunnymund cleared his throat and began to tell his story.
"I thought Frost would be terrifying. I'm talking, take-out-a-Yeti-with-the-snap-of-a-finger. I thought his breath could turn me to ice. I thought his very presence would make me feel uneasy, that his eyes would be cruel."
Toothiana grinned and nodded. She liked where this was going. The desire to meet Jack only grew by the second. Was Jack Frost horrible? Or was he a kind winter spirit who had had a bad beginning? The wrong impression? Was he something totally different?
"But..." Bunnymund laughed as he remembered. "He was just... a kid."
Toothiana's face fell. "Wait, what do you mean, a kid? A child?" She'd been wagering for the strong and thirty-something year old man who could conjure ice with the snap of his fingers. But... a child? That wasn't terrible, she supposed. But the closest human spirit she knew was North, and, um, no. For thousands of years, Tooth had been working closely with children and spirits and children and fairies and she was so tired of it all. A not-too-old spirit would suffice. A not-too-old-and-not-Boogeyman spirit, specifically.
But. A child? An innocent immortal? That didn't make any sense.
"Yes," Bunnymund said, nodding his head. "A boy. He... well, probably the oldest I'd wager is eighteen. Physically. But that's pushing it. Actually, he couldn't be. Eighteen-year-olds don't get onto North's lists."
Toothiana's eyes widened and her hopes shot skyward again. "Eighteen!" she said cheerfully.
"Seventeen," Bunny responded. "Seventeen, maybe. But physically."
"Bun!" she exclaimed. "I'm seventeen!"
Bunnymund's eyebrows rose. "So, you are," he responded, but after seeing her joy he had a rather strange thought. If rabbits could blush, Bunnymund would be bright red. "T-Toothiana!" he shouted. "You-"
Tooth giggled and touched her feet to the floor, letting the wings drop as she looked down. "Aw, c'mon, Bun," she said sympathetically, grinning. "I just... wanted to know."
Bunnymund cleared his throat again and looked anywhere but her. "And- and that's all that matters," he said, and stood up to tap his foot and create a passage.
"Wait!" Tooth cried, zipping up to him faster than the blink of an eye or, in this case, the tap of a large furry foot. "What about North's list?"
For a daydreamer, she sure paid close attention.
"It's nothing," Bunny said dismissively. "Nothing. He's just... on the list."
"Hey, hold on, I'm not even on the list," she said.
He shrugged. "You're not human, are you?"
"I was," Tooth countered. "I was on the list, a long time ago, remember?"
Regretfully he admitted defeat. Bunnymund sat back down on the chair. He tried very hard to think of what to say, but nothing came to mind.
"You'll be disappointed," he said quietly.
Toothiana calmed herself down and nodded. Her stance held something of what she had gained in the past thousand or more years. She wasn't a teenage girl, not anymore, not really. She was older than the mountains, sister to the wind. She was the magic in the night and held memories long forgotten. So many memories. She was not a child, and this was something her face could not easily betray. The young features fooled almost everyone. She was too young to have stopped aging when she did. The others were so old, so wise, and so powerful. All Toothiana did was collect old bones, bones that somehow held precious memories, good and bad. She rarely sifted through them to listen or watch, but when she did, it was impossible not to cry. The value of what she saw was golden like a memoir, something she usually forgot about when everything was busy.
And so, instead of squealing or freaking out, Toothiana bowed her head and asked Bunnymund to continue with his story. Without interruption. Bunnymund respected the request but was wearily preparing himself for her outbursts.
"It's not a nice story," he said. Toothiana betrayed no intention of intervening. "Jack Frost is a very thin teenager, and he's dumb as rocks. I'm not even insultin' him. He didn't know about Christmas or Easter or anything."
Tooth frowned and hesitantly asked, "What do you mean, he doesn't know about anything? How old is he? You said he's physically seventeen, or whatever it was. How old is he, really?"
"No more than two months."
Toothiana had to cover her mouth in a gasp. "What? Two months? That's it?"
Bunnymund nodded gravely. "I told him, I told him that wasn't right. But the lad insisted. He said he was born under the moon, and it chased away darkness, or something along those lines. And then, with his staff, he could control ice."
Toothiana looked troubled. She ran her thin fingers through her feathered hair and shook her head. "No," Tooth said. "No, that doesn't make any sense."
"It's not a nice story," Bunnymund repeated.
"You said he was born under the moon?" she asked, and he confirmed with a nod. "Well, then, maybe the Man in the Moon has something to do with it. Do you...?"
"We'd have to ask him. But I can't right now. I've got to finish this story and leave."
"Go ahead, then," she said, figuring that it would be easy enough to contemplate the details once Bunnymund left.
The rabbit took in a deep breath. "I asked him a couple more questions. It wasn't much. No Christmas, nothing. Then I went back to North. Told him the story." Bunnymund had purposely left out that the Man in the Moon had told Jack his name. He knew it was a lot to take in and he couldn't imagine Tooth's reaction. That might hold them up. Bunnymund forcefully reminded himself to tell Sandy the whole story without omitting anything. The Sandman was old and wise. He would know what to do. To Toothiana, the story would not make a lot of sense, but she had already promised not to pester him.
"North said... well. I asked to see the lists. Jack Frost wasn't on the naughty list like I thought he'd be." Toothiana held back a giggle. "He wasn't on the nice list at first, either."
"You said."
"I thought he wasn't on it. But he was, between two names."
"What names?" Tooth asked, her brain suddenly zipping through the names she knew at a mile a minute. Bunny told her, Jared Padalecki and Jane Old. Tooth gasped. "I know who you're talking about! Jackson!" she almost shouted. "Jackson Overland."
"Jackson... Overland?" Bunny repeated.
"Yes! His teeth. His teeth. I have his teeth."
Bunnymund nodded. "Yeah. He's a ghost."
Tooth shook her head once again. "He's dead? Why's he on the list?"
"Because, technically, he's alive. But not really. Because he's a spirit. A winter spirit, at that. Mischievous. I think he'll get into some trouble later on."
Toothiana smiled. "Oh, that doesn't matter much," she said. "As long as no one is hurt."
"I'm gonna make sure no one is hurt," Bunnymund said forcefully. "I'm gonna make sure of it."
She nodded.
"I have to go, Tooth. I'm sorry."
"It's alright," she responded, pulling herself into the air with the rapid zip of thin wings. "I'll see you later, Bun."
He frowned at the nickname but bid her farewell, tapping the ground twice and finally disappearing into the warren.
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
A/N: I cringed while reading this to myself. It's completely non-canon—but, then I figured out a way to make it canon. Tooth didn't know about his memories in the movie, but she does in this. I had to think of another thing to add, which actually gives me a lot more ideas.
Updates will be on Fridays or Saturdays from now on. Thanks for reading.