Heeeeyyyyooo!

Just want to get a few things out there.

1. I'm going on info I've gathered from various FanFics and the movie. I have not read the books. But I plan to. And I have a feeling I will be facepalming at my pathetic interpretations of the histories of the Guardians, and their various powers, and such, when I do come around to reading them. So, if I say something that is NOT cannon, or that coincidentally IS, then please don't judge. Pretend you've only seen the movie as you're reading this. ;)

2. I've hit a brick wall, so I'm posting, like, all of the chapters I have all at once so I can clear out my WIP folder of chapters that are completed. Maybe it'll clear my head at the same time.

3. R&R, s'il vous plait!

4. It's almost Christmas, so therefore inspiration will come to me, eventually. After all, the main setting of this particular story is the North Pole. Gotta have Christmas in Santa's workshop, am I right?

5. If you have anything to say - good, bad and ugly - please feel free to let me know! And, if it's good, you can tell other people, too. I'd like my readership to grow, if ya know what I mean. :D

Shmanks much!

DFTBA,

doubtfulfig

"Tooth, come on. Give her some time."

I stirred at the familiar voice.

"No. She should be gone as soon as she can stand."

Now that one, I didn't recognize. It was shrill and female. But the booming voice making some sort of exclamation in Russian was enough to draw me out of my stupor. I choked down a cough, breathing heavily through my nose, before trying to peel apart my eyelids. Gross. It was as if someone had glued them together with sleep. Plus, my pupils weren't really feeling the light, despite the fact that it was near pitch-black. Even in the darkness of Northern night, pain shot from the backs of my eyes up through my forehead. I instantly snapped them shut, giving myself some time to wake up — and hear some things that wouldn't be said if I were awake.

North stopped grumbling to exclaim, "Look at her! Was covered in blood, and had Pitch's nightmare sand shoved down throat! And what of her brother? Hm? He keeps asking for her. We've got to give at least couple days to recover."

I silently thanked North for defending me. You try and breathe around a couple of pounds of sand, then we'll see who's willing to travel.

"She has a family," the woman's voice emphasized, "that will be worrying about her. We can't risk it!" Desperation rang high and true.

"They won't believe it's us, Toothie," another new voice put in, Australian, gruff. What is this, a language fruit basket?

"Still, it would be best to let her family take care of her."

"Tooth. Come on. Think rationally." This voice, the one that has kept me grounded the last few times I've been awake, instantly made the panic flaring through my stomach calm, like a storm slowly freezing over, churning water slowly halting to the cold. "Sandy's been busy all night, getting that stuff out of her."

"If anyone can help her, it's him," the Australian agreed.

"Plus…" the other voice said hesitantly, "I don't think either of them should go back there." A pause, then, "I think they're the only family they have now."

There was an awkward silence, a couple of dramatic female sighs, and rustling until a door clicked closed.

An exasperated sigh, little slapping sounds of bare feet approaching. "How's she doing, Sandy?" Jack's voice was close, to my left, based on the weird cold reaching my exposed left fingertips. It was like an unnatural opposite of the orb of warmth a campfire creates.

I heard it again, that gentle shing, and a brushing of a thousand tiny particles brushing against themselves. I was tempted to open my eyes to see what the heck was going on, but I didn't want to make it known that I was awake until it was absolutely impossible.

Like, to pee.

Which was going to be approximately four minutes.

"Heh. You said it." What? Did I miss something? No one said anything! He exhaled loudly through his nose before padding away. "Let me know if anything changes. I'll go and check on Emmett."

The door clicked closed again, and blessed silence and the crackling of what sounded like a fire engulfed me in comfort. That and a sort of noise, like sand gently brushing against glass, a shush that babbled in a kind of cheery gentleness.

I just breathed for a while, relishing in the weightlessness of air in my lungs. Crisp air nipped the inside of my nostrils, but heat wrapped warm fingers around my frozen toes. I've always had cold extremities - it was to the point where they were cold all the time, and if I could actually tell if they were cold, they were probably close to falling off due to frostbite.

What's the term? Cold hands, warm heart?

Psh. As if.

Open your eyes, Willow.

The voice was gentle, deep, and really comforting - the kind of voice you associate with the wizened wizard who leads the hero to their destiny. So, despite my initial wave of panic, I decided to trust it. I swallowed, because I knew if I attempted to reply, either phlegm or dusty vocal chords would ruin the effect.

I know you're awake. Just open your eyes. They're all gone now.

I did as he asked. The room had a wintry cabin-esque feel, with the high-vaulted ceilings and dark-stained wood beams stretching along the roof. It filled in the corners, making the angular points warm and hearty-looking. Outside the huge window to my right, black sky opened up, punctured by thousands of little pinpricks of pure white. It stretched out widely over the ground that matched the twinkling stars, glittering a calm, but fierce, white. At my feet, a charming little fireplace housed a moderate flame, feeding itself on the small pile of cindering wood that was unlucky enough to be consumed by its heat. To my left, shadows encased whatever was there, except for a door beside the fireplace. I couldn't accurately decide how big the room was — it wasn't a bedroom. The ceilings were too high to house warmth for sleeping bodies. Warm flame-inflicted shadows danced around, jerking back and forth as the fire decided where to send light, then instantly changing its mind.

The owner of the voice sat on a tall, spindly stool at the foot of my bed, smooshed between the window and my bed. Next to him, on a small table that was carved in the same delicately stocky style as the stool, was a glass jar, filled with an oddly beautiful mixture of what looked like black and golden sand. It was like some sort of artistic rainbow bread, swirling and folding against itself. I thought I knew what that was, and where it had been, but I didn't want to think about it at the moment. Instead, I inspected the guy sitting atop the stool.

It was the little golden man I'd seen before I'd blacked out. He wouldn't have reached my hips, had I been standing, but he didn't seem to be the type of guy who would mind. In fact, he seemed quite content. His hair stood up in weird little peaks, like sand dunes, which was kind of appropriate, I guess, since sand clung to the strands to make it look like the fuzzy half of Velcro. His getup didn't look very solid - like a glistening sand castle, only held together by sheer hope and a bit of water. His face was alight, easily smiling at me as I took his appearance in. The wide (and stupidly adorable) button nose and sunny eyes totally helped his enthusiastic smile seem brighter.

I tried a smile, and a greeting. "Hello, Sandman."

His eyes crinkled and his chest wobbled, like he was chuckling, but no robust laughter came from his mouth. Instead, he seemed to make the same kind of tinkling I'd heard before. It joined in a kind of harmony with the melody of the sputtering fire.

Hello.

I had to blink slowly to kind of comprehend what just happened. He spoke, but... his mouth didn't... move...

This is how I prefer to talk. He sat forward, eyebrows moving as if he was making conversation, but his mouth still didn't move.

"What, so you don't wake anyone up?" I joked half-heartedly as I tried to sit up.

Maybe. He said it slowly, like he'd never considered it before. Huh. You are a deep thinker.

"Glad you think so." I rubbed my hand along the back of my neck. No crusty flakes of brown - that was a good sign, I guessed, but my bones felt rusted, so dropping my arm back down to my side felt heavenly. I sighed deeply, then glinted a small smile to the little sandy man. "What exactly happened? Where's Emmett?" With each word, I got more agitated. "Where the hell am I? What have you done to me?"

Willow, relax, Sandman's hands floated in midair, like he was pressing my panic down. Oddly enough, it seemed to work. My pattering heart slowed to a steady beat again. North's looking after Emmett now.

"How is he?"

He didn't answer right away. He'll be fine.

I narrowed my eyes at him. No matter how adorable he was, I wasn't going to let him smooth over the details of my little brother's survival. "What aren't you telling me?"

His lips pressed together. He wasn't as bad as you. Your lungs were really close to collapsing. We had to focus on you.

"What happened?"

His leg —

I shook my head violently. "I don't need to know the details. Will he be in one piece?"

He shrugged, a smile tugging the corners of his mouth upwards. More or less.

"Good." I leaned back into the pillows. "That's all I need to know."

We've been looking for you for two weeks straight, Willow. His hands clasped his knees. You've been in Pitch's grasp for that long.

I kind of blanched. I've been this close to death for… for two weeks straight? "It felt like years, Sandman." It felt odd, thinking that two weeks was gone — just sucked away from me. Like a time-continuum vortex had opened up and eaten fourteen days of my life. Like it just disappeared from my timeline.

Sandman considered his next words carefully. Do you want to talk about it?

I frowned. "Not really." I just gestured to my neck, and my cheeks, where I felt scabs catch on fabric and my hair. "He bit, tore, cut, hit, all that kind of stuff, while we had to watch. Then he'd show us our worst nightmares, and we couldn't escape. But other than that, there's not much to talk about, other than Pitch's obvious fear of light." I laughed lightly. "He's not the best interior designer out there, that's for sure. Needs a pop of colour somewhere."

Sandman didn't fall for it. His eyebrows lowered, and I could just feel the pity party coming on, so I changed the subject quickly: "I guess I've been a bit of a bone of contention, haven't I?"

He eyed me, like "I wasn't done talking about that, yet," but he played along. Don't mind Tooth. She has a good heart.

"Yeah, well..." My voice was barely a whisper as I fiddled with the blanket, a soft white quilt with patches of ecru and beige. It was oddly soft, sort of like those cashmere blankets you get at Costco, then you wash them and they become a ratty mess. It felt like the pre-wash plushiness, but it looked like ordinary cotton. "I'm used to not being wanted. I understand if you want to send me home. I can deal. But please, don't make Emmett go back there."

I felt his gaze bore a hole into my head, but I didn't look up. I wasn't interested in getting into the sob story. I just waited for him to respond — in the meantime, I tried to prepare myself for the words "home", "family", "worried", all that stuff. I wanted to rebut it, so badly that my reply was already poised on my tongue, pointed and red-hot like arrows notched on a taut bow. But I knew I wouldn't refuse. No one seemed to get it the first few hundred times I said it, so why would anyone now?

Instead, he said softly, Willow, you're not leaving here. Not until you're 100% better.

I didn't really believe him, but the hope ignited in my chest caused me to check his face, just to make sure he was telling the truth. His lips were pressed into a tight line, his nose flared, the golden eyes twinkling fiercely. I was shocked to find them so defensive of me, like he was my friend. It had been a long time since I had one of those, to the point where I'd gotten kind of bad at the practice of friendship. But however little I knew about trust and friends anymore, I figured you needed to know each other longer than two and a half minutes in order for them to be relatively protective.

But, then again, these people weren't technically supposed to be real.

Nodding, I murmured, "Thank you."

You're welcome. He nodded, too, satisfied, and sat back. In fact, I would be happy if you didn't leave. At all.

That sharpened my gaze. "What do you mean by that?"

His eyes twinkled, like he had something wonderful hiding behind his back. You know I'm the Guardian of Dreams, right?

"Uh... yeah," I said, vaguely remembering stories told about a man sprinkling sand into the eyes of sleepy children, filling their heads with fantastical dreams that kept slinking shadows of nightmares at bay.

My sand gives children dreams — whether it be winning a national soccer game, or singing a song that comes true, or riding unicorns around, it's my sand that plants those thoughts in their minds. To prove his point, he pulled a golden thread of grains from thin air, streaming it around with his little hands. The sand caught at the flickering firelight, sparkling in a sweet yellowy white.

"Ok." I rubbed my eyes, hard. This was all a little much. I mean, not that I haven't seen things before that others failed to, but come on. I was getting over some sort of torture the Bogeyman inflicted upon me. Some time to process everything would be wonderful. "So… what? What's that got to do with me?"

His eyes glinted with something other than the firelight. I've never had to use it with you.

I just squinted at him.

I say that like it's a big deal, he continued, releasing the sand from the intangible grip he held it in, sending it to dissipate in a little cloud of gold, because it is.

"Oh...kay..." I was suddenly very overwhelmed. My line of thought seemed to just attack the back of my face, and I had to scrunch it up violently in order for it to feel any better. "Why exactly does that make you want me here?"

He watched me viciously rub my eyes with a sad little smile. It's nice to have someone around who can hold their own in the realm of the unreal.

I just eyed him, like "you're joking, aren't you", then snorted a little. "Hate to break it to you, Sandman, but my dreams have long but been shattered."

Nonetheless, you have a spark in you, Willow, that no one else has. Even if everyone else has trouble seeing it. Sandman shifted his little butt on his stool so that, instead of dangling his shins over the edge, his short little legs stuck straight out, horizontally. That much is certain, since you can see me now.

My eyebrow quirked involuntarily. "Really."

Guardians can only be seen by people who believe in them - which, anymore, is usually only kids. You are the only teenager since the Dark Ages to see us. He gestured to me, in his weirdly mute way, as he continued speaking to me. In my head.

"Yeah, I've been told I'm something special." I was suddenly very aware of the fact that I was clothed. A strange thing to be noticed, I know, but after spending a very vulnerable x amount of time — x apparently being fourteen days — having to try to hide myself from a lunatic because of my almost-nakedness, the warmth and the cloth catching on the thousands of little shallow cuts all over my body made me uncomfortable.

Pitch told you, didn't he? His head cocked to the side, like a teachers' does when they're trying to coax the truth out of you about someone bullying you.

I tried to nod nonchalantly, pulling at the sleeve of the hoodie I was wearing. It was a size too big for me, but it was comfortable enough. Navy blue, uneven drawstrings dangling down onto my chest.

My bound chest.

Sweet. New bra.

He sighed inaudibly. You know, if you don't fear him, you won't be able to see him. His eyes tried to push a legit answer out of me. He can't touch you if you don't believe.

I sighed too, gesturing vaguely with my hands, because I didn't know what the hell to make out of all of this. "I didn't think I believed in him. In fact, I thought I'd stopped believing in all of you the moment I was sent away from my home."

He regarded me for a moment, but didn't say anything. Not that he actually said anything before.

Clearing my throat, I pointed to the jar of swirly sand on the table. "That's yours?"

Sort of. Pressing his lips together, he leaned forward so his elbows rested on his knees. It's kind of a long story.

"Does it look like I'm going anywhere?" I settled in deeper to the pillows, tucking my hands into the pocket of the hoodie under the quilt. My movement, and my fingers playing with the fabric, released the smell of crisp nothing, like the smell of frozen water, with a hint of musky pine.

Well... The little yellow man looked troubled, so much so that the vibrance of his eyes dimmed. For such a sunny guy, it was sad to see, and a bit disconcerting. Ok, maybe it alarmed me a bit, but I was done being alarmed, so I patted the quilt next to my knees. He smiled, then floated over weightlessly to rest next to me. I would have said he leapt, but... he just seemed to pick himself up, spinning slowly in the air before resting on the quilt. Like a string of fishing line lifted him. He even raised his knees into a cross before plopping himself onto the mattress. He radiated something much more than warmth — and knowing him, it was hope, happiness, innocence, all that mushy crap you associate with dreams. But that crap was kind of comforting.

A while back... he began slowly, opening his palms. It was such a genuine gesture — something I've found only transparent people do, open their hands up like some sort of susceptible offering. Actually, it was kind of recent, but Pitch... A long time ago — like a long time ago — we defeated him. We thought we'd gotten rid of him for good. But you can never get rid of fear. Something was weighing down his tone, and he looked out the window, over the endless white and black.

"So he came back?"

He nodded brusquely, making the little peaks of his hair wobble. He made all of the children stop believing in us. He took Tooth's fairies — the little ones who take the teeth and leave gifts — and all of the teeth, and stopped Bunny from bringing Easter to the world. A breath. Then, He shot me, with a spear of nightmares. He turned me. Twisted me, so my dreams became his own weapons, inflicting fear on the kids all over the world. His little fists balled up in the quilt, and anger and shame twisted his eyebrows so ridges formed above his nose. That's how he had gained power in the first place — taking the sand I used to give dreams to everyone, and blackening them.

"Sandman..." It was weird — I could almost see everything happening, vividly dancing across a sort of subconscious line of sight. I wondered if it was his sand, giving me a sort of version of a daydream. It was... horrifying. "It wasn't your fault."

It took him a second, but he loosened his grip and managed a tight-lipped smile. I know. But the point of the story is, that's what he did to you. This stuff — he tapped the glass with a shot of his own sand, sending a soft sol tone through the air — the black, it's his nightmares. The gold is what I've managed to change back into my own, but... it's more resistant now.

"That..." I swallowed. My saliva suddenly seemed kind of thick. "That was all inside me?"

I got as much as I could, he said, but you'll have to excrete the rest.

"Great. If I end up feeling pukey, I'm glad I know it's because I'm digesting nightmares."

He winced. Sorry.

I had to giggle. Jeesh, these Guardians didn't know the concept of sarcasm. "Sandman. I was totally joking. I can breathe now." I examined his little face — I realize I've been using the word little to describe him, but that's the perfect word for him, that and wide — and I gave him a smile, one that actually reached my eyes, I think.

He seemed to accept my thanks by half-smiling, so I sat back again. "So, how did you save the children?" I asked, tucking my hair behind my ear.

Jack Frost.

"Ah." I grinned. "He seems to like the whole 'save-the-helpless-people' thing."

Yeah, he's a keeper, I guess. He closed his eyes in a full-out chuckle, although it was kind of lost, since he didn't make a noise except for the dancing sand that surrounded his head. Only one child was left — in fact, he was just about to give up when Jack gave him something to believe in.

I looked down at the drawstrings my hands had found on their own. "Hm" was all I could say before a huge yawn ripped my face in half.

You should get some more sleep. He stood, brushing off a few stray grains of gold, and floated toward the jar, grasping it with both hands. You may have nightmares. He lifted the jar. I wish I could do something about it... but if you want, I can stay until you fall asleep.

I gave him a thin smile. "That's ok, Sandman. You've done so much for me already. Thanks, though."

Please, just call me Sandy. Feel free to call for one of us — there's always someone around.

That made my smile not so thin. "Thanks, Sandy."

He nodded, a friendly smile playing across his squat face. Floating a few feet above the floor, he shut the door quietly after sending me a wink.

It felt like the sun had gone behind a cloud. The magnet between my eyebrows activated again, as I picked at the little film of granules that covered the quilt. It glinted in the firelight. Soon I had a pile of dreamsand settled in my palm, a dense heaviness that collected in the fissures of my skin. As I curled up around that fistful of gold, I thought of how wonderful it had been, for the first time in a really long time, to be transparent. I didn't have to fake anything. And no one seemed to mind.