Fear Itself

Chapter 4

Notes: you guys are just, blowing me away. Seriously.

I'm just… Honored you like my story this much.

Thanks.

000

Jack came out of the portal and right into a wind that sent him flying backwards. If the portal had not closed right behind him he would have been blown right back into Santa's workshop.

As it was he managed to curl himself enough that he stopped being blown about by the wind and squinted between his arms in front of his face trying to find the tower.

The wind raged and he could hear the voices. This was not the wind that carried him about back home.

This wind, was not of earth!

It demanded to know who he was, where he came from. What his business was.

"I'm Jack Frost, a Guardian! I was sent! By Nicolas St. North and the Man in the Moon. The lord of Nightmares has the Gate and seeks the Key. Please! I just need to make sure one half of them are –" he paused as suddenly the wind stopped, and looking around he saw nothing but white in all directions "safe…" he trailed off as his eyes fell on a tall tower. He could see a figure standing on top of it and with a flit he found a light enough breeze to blow him in the right direction.

When he came to the tower what he found sitting on top was, a Golden Lion. Oh, it had wings too.

"Key?" he asked hesitantly, the way North had talked he thought that perhaps he was going to be meeting a lady or such, and well this was a maned lion, not even a lioness.

"I was her Protector." The lion told him and turned around to go into the tower "What has the Dark One done?" his pads fell onto the tower stones and after a long pause Jack let himself land on the flagstones as well his staff over his shoulder and tucking his other hand into his pocket. He looked around and followed the lion. It seemed it was what it wanted him to do.

The lions voice was deep and hallow. Almost dead sounding. It unnerved Jack, because he had a feeling this was a creature that unlike himself, and unlike the other Guardians, was never human.

"I'm not sure what Pitch is up to, but I know he has gotten his hands on a girl that according to Santa and the MiM is the Gate. He may also know where the Key is." Jack looked around as he went into the tower. This top chamber looked like a bedroom. There were many windows, and he noticed none of them showed any of the views he saw coming in. One had crashing waves of the ocean over rocks, another showed a maple forest in fall with their leaves all red, orange and golden. And still another window had, well, it had Jack's Pond in winter. He paused looking through this window.

The Lion stopped by a mirror near a wardrobe. "Key is no longer here. She managed to earn her freedom."

"What?" Jack been finding himself saying this a lot lately. He moved fast over to the lion. "But if she's not here, where is she? How did she escape?"

"The mirror will answer all, simply look through it."

Jack paused and looked into the mirror. All he saw was himself reflected "I… don't see anything."

"Wait and look." The lion said and Jack turned his eyes back to the mirror.

After a few more moments. Jack was about to say something when suddenly he paused.

It was like his hair grew longer, then his face thinner. His eyes paled from their bright icy blue to a silvery blue color. His skin white as his hair that almost seemed to blend with his skin. Reaching out he touched the mirror, a touch of warmth spread.

And he realized he was no longer looking at himself. He was staring at the slim form of Key.

"They took my name." her voice was so sad, sorrowful. "They took my name and trapped me here. Because of a chance. A singular chance that my power could be used to destroy the realms. I open the Gates between the worlds, but no more. They took half my power and flung it into the world. So that it floats lost among the realms."

"Who did?"

"Time, and others. They called me an anomaly. A danger. So they stripped me of everything and put me here. But all cells must have a Key and because of my Nature I would become that Key in time. So they gave my cell rules. I would hold the keys to every door here save one. That lock was given to another. Always they would put prisoners here. And I could choose to free them, since I could unlock their doors. But only they could walk out the front gate, and only they could then choose to free me. But then they made it so that when they cross that barrier they would forget any promise they made to me. So that they would leave and leave me behind."

Jack felt her sadness and knelt with her as she sank her hand touching his on the mirror. "How did you finally leave?"

"Lion, my protector. The one they put here for me. My jailor, my friend, my love, my guardian." Jack felt such an overwhelming warmth, care, and almost turned his head away from the mirror, part of his mind going 'him? He's like so stoic he might as well be a stone!' "He stayed and one day realized that the rules applied to him as well. They had not thought that the one they put here for me would be able to pass the door and unlike the others would not be tempted to forget his promise as to forget me would be to forget his duty. So he turned and held his hand to me." The mirror twisted and Jack paused as the lion in this scene was not the winged golden animal seated by the mirror facing him. This was a man as tall and alien as the woman he stared at. Against her white he was a golden statue. As fierce and dangerous as the words of the bible about angels. He carried a great sword in one hand. Going out the front gate he paused by the strange pillar topped with a crystal that glowed with a soft luminance. He stared at it for a long time and Key stood at the entrance. Holding her breath and holding her hands to her mouth. Shaking like a leaf, terrified that he would not turn.

That he would forget her. Forget his duty.

And she would be forever alone.

He turned and even Jack was taken aback by the utter warmth in his eyes the smile that crossed his features making him look less fierce.

He held his hand out to her "It's ok, you can come."

And with a sob she charged into freedom and his arms.

"But the others came." Jack was staring into her eyes for a moment as the scene twisted and many faces that Jack did not recognize came into view. The lion man held Key tightly. Holding his sword against these others. "They knew that one day the safeguards may fail and were ready to come back and put me back in my cell. My Love flung me towards the portal." He pushed her behind him, holding his sword against the others.

The moment she touched the pillar the glow above grew larger and more brilliant. Her last view as she reached back towards the one who had been by her side all this time was his sword clashing against Father Time and then falling as another struck from behind.

Jack was staring at Key again who looked at him with such pain his own eyes filled with moisture. It.. wasn't fair! She had done nothing wrong. They had just all been…

Scared.

He found himself frowning. "What happened to you?"

"I was flung into the realm were my Gate had just been born." She told him. "I was lost, confused and no one could see me. The days of old when we were all believed in have long gone and without the belief there is so little real magic. Just pockets here and there, but it's hard to find and harder to hold onto. I was growing weak. My tower had been outside of all the realms. A place between and thus it never changed. But here, there was nowhere for me to hide and I knew I would either die, or they would come and take me back to my cell and everything would be for naught. Lion's sacrifice and my escape."

The scene swirled and he saw her, cold and lost. It was very late and early spring. Scared by traffic and things she'd only seen in her windows that showed her scenes of all the realms. Since time began.

The silvery being felt something. That drew her to a hospital. Inside she wandered passed rooms and nurses until she came to a room where a woman was fighting to give birth.

As she came in the baby was born, but did not cry out. Jack saw her look in curiosity as the child was nearly completely blue.

Doctors left the new mother's side. All rushing to try and help the struggling infant.

"They never told me that the Gates never live longer than a few years. Without magic in the world, without me, they were all doomed to die young." Key's voice said and Jack closed his eyes briefly.

"My little girl… my first little girl, and I don't get to keep her." The woman on the table said softly. Key had looked at her in startlemeant. Saw the tired acceptance.

And she turned to the infant. And Walked towards the doctors, then through them.

There was a brief light and a sudden cry. A new baby's cry.

Jack looked at the woman on the table and the look of wonder on her face. One of the doctors came over with the baby and laid the squalling infant on her chest. "It's a girl Mrs. Tompson."

"I know." The woman said softly and began petting the child who was quickly gaining proper color. Who opened silvery eyes that would soon turn brown. "My Ashley…"

"I thought perhaps if I joined my Gate we would become one. That we would be a single person again. That I would be whole. To have back my Name, my power."

Jack stared at the new mother and her child. The child that was the Gate.

And now was the Key as well.

"We are not one person, but they cannot find me. And now, both of us can live in this realm. Both of us have a chance at being whole."

Time shifted and there was a little dark haired girl in footy pajamas and curled with a hedgehog toy her nose pressed to a window.

Jack nearly released the window. He knew this!

He'd seen a little girl who was sick and had tried to cheer her up. Making her breath frost the windows and drawing pictures with her in the resulting canvas. This was, Ashley?

Soon he saw her giggling as he played with her through the window. Unknown to him the shadows coalesced under the pine tree in the yard behind them. He had not realized that the child had actually been able to see him. She had been horribly sick and was losing coherent thought so he thought she was going to curl up and sleep when the other children came down the road about to go sledding.

So he had turned to the new distraction and followed the other children to play with them and let the girl rest.

But she had seen him go without a good bye, and had run to the doorway. The cold had hit her like a mallet and made her crumple.

Under the pine tree Pitch had come into view. He walked a crossed the snow to the little girl and leaned down over her. His eyes taking her in and Jack knew that he knew what he was looking at, while Jack had been clueless as to why he had been drawn to the girl.

He brushed back her hair and then along a draft of cold air sent a chill of fear into the house, that then found the mother and she rushed the girl off to the hospital.

She had been very sick, her fever had spiked.

And Pitch had saved her.

But Jack, Jack had been the one to endanger her.

And led Pitch right to her.

"This had been my fault, this whole situation. She had believed and I left her, left you, to nearly die."

He saw Key again looking into his gaze "No Jack, our fever had already been spiking before this. If you had not come, we would have only gone to sleep, and both would have died before Mother found us." She said "very likely at least, it is hard to see all the 'might have beens'. It was not your fault. The results had ended with the Dark One having found us, but that in its own way would have been inevitable. He had been trying to find us his whole existence. Ones like him were the reason I was split and why Gates died while I lived on in my Tower unable to be with my sisters. Him and ones like him. Ones who desired the light without knowing what it meant to hold. Only seeing their perceptions of power."

"What where you meant for?" Jack asked her.

"I was the connection between all our realms and all our universes. I let the magic flow and there where many of us then. We did not need belief to live because magic was in the air. But without the magic, the Golden Age was to disappear eventually and few of us remain. Only the strongest, and those who figured out how to use the snippets of magic created by belief. And ones like you, born of man." It was as if he felt a hand along his cheek. "You are so special Jack." She said softly and smiled at him. It was the same smile that he'd seen Ashley turn to him. A mischievous girl.

"The Man in the Moon did not know what he made when he gave you life." She told him. "Please, you must save Ashley." Her eyes tear up. "She is my little sister."

"But what about you?" he had a feeling it was as if he was trying to hang onto someone who stood at the edge of a building.

"I have one sacrifice left in me if I must. I will not be imprisoned again. I can't take being imprisoned again. Please Jack, tell me, does my Lion still live?"

"Yes, he showed me the mirror." Jack told her.

One hand went to her mouth and silvery tears fell down her cheeks, "Tell him I love him. Please. Until the end of time and the last breathe of the realms. I will love him."

"Wait, what are you going to do? Key!" Jack felt a rising panic.

"I cannot let Pitch have us, as we are we can be controlled. He has ingrained too much fear into our hearts over too long a period. We fight still but it grows harder and if I do not act soon, it will be too late and he will have and kill our Light. Then he would plunge this realm and likely after all realms into darkness, fear and no hope. Until the very things he himself fears are all he knows and he himself is lost along with all of us."

"No, Key don't act yet! I'll come save you. KEY!" Key smiled at him. Such sadness.

And no hope.

The mirror faded and Jack slammed his other fist against it as all he saw was himself. "KEY!" he sunk down, tears dropping to the stone floor. It was as if he was watching a part of himself die.

Seeing his sister standing on the pond again, looking at him with such fear in her eyes, such lost hope. Who thought she was going to die.

"I won't let you." He said softly. There had to be some fairness in this all! There HAD to be!

Because then, what was he trying to protect at all if he couldn't help a child he failed once already?

He stood and looked at the Lion. "How much did you hear?"

"Nothing, this was a private conversation for yourself only. The mirror shows things but only what one is meant to see. And for me the mirror is blocked. As part of my punishment." His golden gaze did not change, his voice did.

But now Jack could see the pain. This proud warrior would not show himself vulnerable to another. He was never allowed. But when one knew him better he knew how to find it. It was kind of like understanding Bunnymund.

"I talked to Key and she is about to do something incredibly stupid. We have to go. NOW."

"I cannot. As punishment I have been cursed to remain here, as she once did." The lion's tail twitched.

Jack frowned "Under the same rules?" he asked.

The lion's head tilted in accent.

"Then I can release you." Jack told him.

"It is not that easy. You can make a promise to me but when you are presented with the portal, they make offers to you. The others who guard this place. To forget all they will give you anything you could want."

"The only thing I want is to help you!" Jack said his hand closing tightly on his staff. Ice spreading further.

"We shall see. As it is, unless you brought another Portal, there is no other way out of this realm." He told him and getting up he walked to the door.

Not outside, but into the tower.

Frowning Jack followed and found them walking down a long stairway. Doors all along. He realized cells. Some of them held things in them. Many where incredibly dark things. Others held sad and tired looking people. "What have they done?"

"Each committed some crime or another. This is their punishment and part of mine. As each in these cell offer hope of escape, and I offer hope of freedom for them as well. Freedom for all, but until there is no keykeeper here there will always be those trapped."

"So, if you are set free, so are they?"

The lion nodded.

"The good ones, and the bad ones?"

"You have no lived as long as I young Winter Chaos. There is no good or evil in these realms."

"Hey, Pitch is evil!"

"Is he? Or is he only acting as is part of his nature?" the lion looked over his shoulder at Jack. "Darkness, fear, the bump in the night. Once he was a force for what you would call good."

"How would fear be good?" Jack said his eyebrow up and knowing his face reflected his disbelief.

"Once your realm was far more dangerous than it is now. When more of us existed. For the humans it was safer if they did not go out at night or go too far from their homes and villages. Bandits, and creatures like trolls and ogres that only now remain as myths. The one you called Pitch and others like him kept the humans close to their homes. Kept them safe. Theirs was a fear that was right. But without Key's full power, the magic and belief faded from our worlds and all the Nightmare Lords began to die and fade away. Until in your realm only one remains. And he has to do more than he was meant to do. He has to find ways around the ways he use to work in the past, and in him is the same terrifying and real fear that he too will fade away and then none will remain." the lion paused and looked at Jack. Next to an arched door beyond which Jack could see the pillar from Key's vision. The Portal. "There can be light without Darkness." He told him "How can one recognize bravery without fear? How does one know to avoid the dark places and the real horrors that lay within without the Boogeyman to warn them and teach them these lessons?"

Jack was silent. It was as if in a single short time all he believed was changed and altered. His whole world tossed into chaos and he didn't know who was good or bad anymore. But he did know that if Pitch was acting out of his own fears, then he was wrong. The way he was trying to solve his own problems was hurting everyone.

Including himself.

Jack felt weird that in reality, he wasn't just trying to save Key and Ashley, he was trying to save Pitch too.

Yeah, he really needed to not think too hard on that one.

"What would happen, if Key died?" Jack asked the lion.

He tilted his shaggy head "For a time things would go on, but without the Key, no more Gates would be born and the power they held would be lost. All our realms would grow further than they have now and then eventually, without the interchange of magic and power, everything would fade. For your realm the humans would not be able to channel their belief. Your Guardians would all disappear and die and then in the end, so would they."

"Everyone?"

"And everything. With no interchange of power and life everything would fade to nothing. It would just, all become nothing. Like it was in the beginning, before Time and Space existed."

Jack bit his lip. "I think Key plans on killing herself to stop Pitch from gaining access to her and Ashley. Because it's the only out she sees."

He glanced at the lion who had gone still. "She said… she would love you until the realms were no more."

The great beast lowers his head and for all that he seemed like a golden statue Jack came to recognize that horrible crushing grief.

That hopeless tired loss.

He'd seen it before. In a mother's face who knew that her daughter was going to die. Before the doctors even told her that her child was a daughter.

He took a breath and took a step towards the opening. "Do not look back Jack, not until after the portal has made their offer. Else you will become trapped here as well and neither of us will be able to leave again."

Jack nodded. He took another step.

And he didn't look back.

000

End notes: was going to go with Ashley, but in the end she didn't have anything to say right yet. Jack on the other hand is a man on a mission!

Alright, so hope I made sense and didn't contradict too confusingly.