Fear Itself
Chapter 5
Notes: and things really are going fast with this story. We're reaching the end of it soon! Almost wish it could have turned into one of my epic long stories, but it doesn't seem to be that way.
000
Ashley slept in a corner of her room. The only place that still seemed to have light. Curled up with a childhood toy and a battery powered lantern still on beside her. Her home felt freezing, as cold as outside and she had no blanket. Nothing to create shadows deep enough to allow Pitch near her.
She got up and slowly went about her day. Cleaning up, gathering her books and homework and going to school. Like a zombie. There were messages blinking on her answering machine that were unlistened to and unanswered.
She couldn't bring herself to care. Everything was so cold. Inside and out.
She was hanging on desperately to the last shards of hope and light inside her but even that was fading away. Soon there would be nothing but fear. Nothing but Darkness.
Only Pitch Black.
Leaning against the library wall she found tears on her cheeks and as she reached up and touched them her fingers came away with an odd silvery sheen.
I'm so sorry.
Ashley sat up and looked around trying to find the source of the voice.
"Who is that?"
I failed us both.
"What? Who are you? What do you want?"
I wish I could have been a better sister for you. You deserved so much more.
"You're scaring me... Pitch? Is that you?" Ashley pulled back into herself. This was for some reason scaring her more than normal. This sweet feminine voice in her head. It was terrifying her because some part of her seemed to instinctively know that this was a real danger to her.
I'm sorry Ashley, I am. I had hoped we could grow up, fall in love, have children. I really would have liked to see that. Remember when we use to have tea parties? You were so little. Missing half your teeth and impishly tying them to the bedpost to make it 'more of a challenge' for the tooth fairies.
Ashley was still, she remembered tying her teeth to bits of fishing line so it would be invisible. She woke up seeing one of the little fairies tugging on the tooth and oh boy had they given her a chewing out! She had giggled the whole time.
And woke up the next morning with her face drawn up with marker looking more like an Easter egg instead of money under her pillow.
Still worth it in her opinion.
"How did you know that?" she asked softly. Her arms crossing and hugging herself tight.
In a way, I am You. You are Me. We were meant to be one and instead ended up two because of others fears.
I'm sorry I failed in protecting you. It took everything I had to just keep us both alive.
"Alive…" Ashley sat down and then pulled her knees up "I wish I wasn't alive."
It's not fair, it's… just not fair. I hate being so powerless! But, there is only one way to escape. I, hope that the one I told about you will come soon, he can save you. He'll protect you.
"What.. What are you talking about?" she asked softly.
If I am no more than no one will ever be able to hurt you. And if I do this right, you will live.
"What do you mean?" she was repeating herself and feeling more confused by the second.
Its okay Ashley, it will be alright soon. I promise.
And the voice faded, and something in Ashley told her that this was bad. That this wasn't how it should work.
That she needed that voice.
But she didn't know what to do. Where to go, or how to change things.
"Please, come back… come back… please." She whispered feeling young, alone, vulnerable and pulling up her knees close to herself crying lost and alone and wondering if she was just finally going mad.
000
Jack kept going forward until he found himself by the pillars. One hand holding his staff the other in his pocket he looked up at the glowing source on top and he could hear voices in his head. So many voices until it was hard to think who he was, or what he was doing.
He tighten his jaw and focused. There was a girl out there that needed him. People that depended on him.
People that Believed in him.
He wasn't going to abandon his duty as a Guardian. It was what he died once for and what he was born to do.
"Jack… I'm scared."
And suddenly he was standing on that icy pond again. Before him was his sister. And the ice was breaking under their feet.
What was going on?
And there was a kind of glow.
The portal could take him where he wanted to go.
Even then…
And he could change the outcome. He could save her and live himself.
He didn't have to fall into the ice. He could escape that icy grip, the years of loneliness.
"It's ok!" he told his little sister. The little girl staring at him with such fear "We're going to play a game." He was acting on auto pilot. There was that glow, it was hard to think. All he knew for a moment was that he could do this. He could.
Come … back… a tiny girl's voice. Not his sister.
Another child only this one he failed.
No… "NO! This already happened! I won't change the outcome! YOU WILL NOT UNMAKE WHAT I AM!" he had not failed his sister. He had saved her. She lived and for all he had not remembered her and was not there when she grew older and died. He had saved her when she needed him most.
He had not failed her.
But, there was another little girl he had failed.
The scene changed and instead of facing his sister he faced a little girl with a window pane between them. Drawing snowflakes and ravens in the frost made from her breath.
And here was his chance to save her. To undo that failure.
But, what about later? Well if he didn't leave her now she would never meet Pitch.
Right?
But he was forgetting something.
Something important. A key piece of information.
If you had not come, we would have only gone to sleep, and both would have died before Mother found us.
Another voice and suddenly he remember with clarity.
"Key."
Fairness.
He could not fail them! Yes he could go back, change this scene and make it so that it never happened the way it did, that Ashley was never terrified by Pitch, but would it really be better? What if as Key said she just curled up and went to sleep then died of her fever before anyone found her?
Would that in the end, do the same thing he was trying to stop now?
And he shook his head "No. This is not what I want either."
And Jack was standing before the pillar. Staring up at the glow and he grinned, flipping around on one heel and rocking back to give the lion a bright smile "Yo, you going to stand about there all day or we gonna go save ourselves some damsels?"
The lion was staring at him stunned, and slowly put one paw forward, slowly as if expecting to be stopped.
Then he was not. He started coming forward, slowly at first. Then faster.
And his shape, form, it all began to blur and shift.
Then as he stepped next to Jack he was tall. That golden angelic Protector. "Let us go then, before the others show up and try to stop us."
"Yeah well if they try they are messing with Guardian Business." Jack told him and turned back to the portal. "Right you windbag! Take me where I REALLY want to go."
The portal opened and he could see Santa's workshop. "After you" he mockingly gave the lion a bow, just in case the stupid thing would close after Jack went through.
The golden man rolled his eyes and went through the portal closely followed by Jack.
On the other side the Yetis had all stopped their work and were staring with rather large eyes not sure what was going on.
"Hey guys, don't worry, he's with me." And Jack poked the Protector and headed for Santa's office. "Let's check the big guy and then we are going to have to move. But I think we need the rest of the Guardians. This, is going to be big."
"I can find this 'big guy' and explain. You will know where Key is. Go to her now. We have no time."
"Well I could, but the fastest way to go is by portal, and I would need one of North's portals."
"Then get one!"
"Hey chill, I'll handle this." And Jack headed for Santa's Office at a run. The former Lion close behind him.
Jack dashed into North's office and startled the man who had been munching a cookie and going over flight plans and lists. "Jack! You're back, was Key safe?"
"Its tough to explain, I'll like Mr. Fearsome do the talking. I need one of your portals now, OH and call the other Guardians, we need back up on this!" Jack went to the desk and he saw one of the snow globes balanced on the corner picking it up he looked into it.
"Wha- Jack…" North started then paused and blinked at the golden figure who walked into his office.
"Oh, Privyetstviya." Jack for his part ignored the two figuring that the lion guy could do better than himself in this part with time of an essence and he looked into the ball.
"Time to go back to college." He said shaking it and once he saw the place he wanted he tossed it into the air then hopped into it.
000
"Dear Ashley, why the tears?" a voice said so soothingly. But the young woman only huddled closer into herself. Then she felt the cold chill down her spine meaning Pitch rested his hand on her shoulder.
She pulled back from him "You! You killed her!"
Pitch's face grew still from shock at her outburst.
Ashley though was too distraught, to shaken to be able to even comprehend what she was saying or who she was saying it to. She just knew inside herself that something was terribly wrong and as she shouted at Pitch it was coming clear.
Kill her? Who?
The voice.
"She's going to die because of you!"
"Impossible." Pitch at least seemed to know what she was talking about "Killing herself would solve nothing and it would only kill both of you in the process," he chuckled uneasily "Why would she do something so terribly rash!"
"She thinks the only way to stop you, to stop them! They are coming too… Time is running you, YOU revealed us! You betrayed us as well as yourself!" Ashley was on a roll, the words just coming from somewhere inside. As if a door that had been closed was suddenly flung open.
"Time…" he started and his eyes were first wide with the first real fear Ashley had ever seen in him. Then they suddenly went narrow and dark. Something very horrible in them.
"No one will stop me!" he growled and Ashley had no more time than it took to take a surprised step back.
Just as he closed in on her.
And covered her in darkness.
000
Jack reached the school just as he saw Pitch rush Ashley. "No!" he dove in, but too late.
Both had disappeared into shadow.
He cursed several of North's favorites, even a few of Bunny's. Looking about for a clue as to which way they could have gone. "Wind! Help me find her!"
He closed his eyes and let the wind carry him where it willed. Tumbling along the tree line and over buildings like a fallen snowflake. Until he stopped on the roof of an apartment building. Looking about he found the place.
Because of how dark it was. So terribly dark and horrible feeling with such fear. Even the other apartments near it had gone empty no one wanting to live close to such a feeling of pure nightmare.
He managed to pry open a window and twisting from his position hanging from the roof he landed in the window perched and looking around. He could feel Pitch's menace in this place. Could practically taste the fear here, but he did not see any sign of Ashley or Pitch having been here within the last few minutes.
"Jack!" he turned intime to be half tackled by the streak of blue and feathers. Then Toothiana released him "Are you alright? North sent out the call and told us to meet here. I saw you blowing on the wind I wondered if you been hurt…"
Jack paused her in her speed panic by putting a hand over her mouth "I am fine, but right now Pitch has a girl in his possession who is very VERY important for the existence of our universe."
Over his hand Tooth's eyes were very wide. He released her and she backed up "How could one person be that?" she asked him.
"She's something called a Gate, and with her in another being called Key. The two of them manage the balance of magic and belief in our realm." He told her.
The tooth fairy's eyes went very wide and she covered her mouth "And Pitch has her? Oh the poor girl! Who is she?"
"Ashley Tompson."
"Ashley," Tooth seemed to think and suddenly chuckled "Oh my! She very seldom got any gifts except face painting for her teeth! She was such an imp, made it hard for my fairies to get her teeth! I heard nothing of her since she lost her last molar."
"Yeah, well Pitch kind of made her disappear off all our radars." Jack told her. "So right now, I'm just trying to find where she was taken."
Tooth finally seemed to look around the apartment and rubbed her arms. "Oh my, Pitch… had really done a number on her."
"Yeah." Jack sad his fingers closing tight enough to creak the wood on his staff. When he got his hands on Pitch, he was going to do a number on his face.
"The others should be here shortly" Tooth said "I bet they can help us find out where he's taken her."
"We don't have much in the way of time right now. Because if we don't act quickly, she'll be dead."
"Will Pitch?"
Jack shook his head "Its really complicated."
"Then explain it to me Jack!" she said "Because right now, we are going to be going in circles if we don't know everything that's going on."
Jack paused and looked at her wide purple eyes. She stared back into his. Ernest and ready to help.
He just had to trust her.
He sighed. And began explaining as best he understood.
Jack just hoped they had time.