Author's Note: Sorry for the late update, school's been exhausting, as was the driving tests and the other crap I have to put up with. : ( Well, onward, my friends. To Narnia.

****THIS CHAPTER SERIES TAKES PLACE AFTER THE THANKSGIVING CHAPTER BEFORE THIS ONE :D***

~Bunnymund and Jack Frost~ Jack's Tree Finale: Legend of the Phoenix (thanks Daft Punk XD)

In what little light there was in this certain situation, Jack came to find many dark things. For example, although the pain receded a long while ago, an overwhelming numbness kept him from sitting up, much less moving at all. The room he was currently resting in had been kept at a comfortable temperature (just for him, no doubt), although he couldn't say whether he was in a room or in the warren, seeing that opening his eyes proved to be a tedious task indeed. His mind constantly drifted from one place to another: conscious, unconscious; curious, careless; wanting nothing more but to be up and about, to wanting nothing more but to sleep a little longer. When Jack finally managed to open his eyes, he immediately had to clench them back shut again, the brightness of the room reviving a painful headache that had faded away not moments prior. As his eyes readjusted to the light, his foggy mind grew clearer. Because he still couldn't bring himself to move, he began subconsciously meandering through near-forgotten memories. Memories of a tall standing tree.

"It's beautiful…will you try to climb it?" his younger sister asked faintly. She stared up at the tall tree in awe before shifting her gaze to the tall, equally awestruck boy beside her.

"I don't see why not." Jack spoke lightheartedly. He gestured to the grand tree, brushing the brown hair out of his browner eyes with his other hand. "I think I see another one up there," With a gentle grip, Jack picked up his sister to look up into the tree better. "Do you see it?" he questioned.

Immediately, her face lit up with joy. "Yes!" she exclaimed. "It's up there, Jack! A brown Easter egg! Oh, can you get it down for me?"

"Of course I can, sweetheart." Jack chuckled, setting her down and cracking his knuckles. "I'll be down here with it rightly."

The tree, despite its towering and threatening demeanor, wasn't all that hard to climb. Jack pulled himself up with ease and perched upon the branch skillfully, carefully picking up the Easter egg and briefly admiring its design. He tried, then, to give the Easter egg to his sisters eagerly outstretched hands, and in doing so nearly fell out of the tree. Rather than allowing his entire body to fall out of the tree, he managed to twist himself so that his legs rested on the branch and held him up as he hung upside down, swinging back and forth much like a monkey with the egg in hand.

From a little ways behind the three, his mother's voice called to him, "Come on, Jack! You can't have fun all the time." before fading away in the distance. Jack found no reason why he couldn't. As he swung backwards, he placed the exquisite brown egg in his younger sister's basket before swinging back up and dangling on the branch again. She ran a finger down the egg's gorgeously painted shell and laughed with Jack. All was well while in his tree, it seemed.

An earsplitting shriek erupted from his sister, and in a panicked frenzy, Jack hopped down from the tree and scurried himself and his sister away from it. An undeniable heat radiated from its bark. A deep crackling broke the stunned silence.

His tree was on fire.

Jack's eyes burst open, his heart thumping against his chest. Despite the throbbing pain in his lower abdomen (that he was gradually getting used to) and his unbearable headache, Jack grabbed the staff resting so handily against the nest he was so carefully placed in, and flew through one of the nearby tunnels. Bunny's urgent and futile shouts were disregarded entirely. They weren't important, after all.

All that mattered was that tree.

It took less than five minutes to get there. Jack would've gone faster, but the wind only went so fast today; that, or it was going as fast as it could and Jack simply didn't care. He could've sworn that he could fly faster than this. Skidding his feet on the dirt, he nearly crashed landed into Burgess. With a fiery determination, he burst through the woods, a slight feeling of déjà vu rekindling in the back of his mind as he made his way through the tall bark soldiers.

Some soldiers, standing and watching one of their companions burn alive.

By the time he arrived at the scene, it was early morning and the sun had just begun to peak over the horizon. Bunny was coming up behind not too far behind him, but again, he didn't care. He couldn't bring himself to care about anything but his tree.

But his tree, it seemed, was no longer there.

A pile of ashes was in its place.

Jack fell to his knees as it dawned upon him. His tree was gone. The firstborn rays of the sun kissed his face and as the tears fell, they glistened beautifully, like stars in the sky. His eyes seemed bluer with tears in them.

His tree, the one that he had gone to for shelter, for answers, for warmth in his winter, for shade in the summer, was gone forever. Reduced to a pile of ashes, a waste, nothing but something left to be forgotten and blown away with the wind. Sort of like him.

Jack leaned forward and cradled his head in his arms.

When Bunny finally managed to catch up, he couldn't bring himself to speak after catching a glimpse of Jack. All he could do was stare in surprise at how heartbroken he was, curled into himself before what looked like a pile of ashes and charred bark. The sun was peeking over the horizon curiously now, wanted more than anything to make Jack Frost warm again. His thin frame rocked gently with silent sobs, and - Bunny couldn't believe his eyes - he shivered. He was shivering - shaking.

Bunnymund slowly neared him and knelt down beside him, cautiously placing a paw on Jack's shoulder.

"Jack…" he spoke just above a whisper.

Jack raised his head from his arm, not to address the Pooka, but to look at where his tree stood. A pale shaky hand sifted through the ashes gentler than anything Bunny has ever seen, as if he were tenderly bidding goodbye to a deceased relative. As he felt the fine ash through his fingers, he raised his head a little more, a tear dripping off the bridge of his nose and into his lap. His lips were moving slowly, but no sound came out, as if he were wording what it was he wanted to say but couldn't quite get it out; as if reluctantly confessing to a crime that he didn't, but couldn't quite fess up to it yet, couldn't come to grips with the fact that the innocent must be penalized and the guilty must go free. A dizzying confusion and sense of emptiness overwhelmed him, and his lips stopped moving. As if meager words could begin to describe the loss he felt. You can't describe loss, after all. You can only let it eat away at you until you forget it, or until there's nothing left of you.

The sun crept over the horizon a little more, peeking through the trees and riding up the two spirit's backs as they sat. Silence consumed the space between them until Jack finally looked up to face the ash completely.

They say you can tell a lot about a person through their eyes. Jack was no exception, but Bunny found that he couldn't look into them for too long before he was devoured by the numbness they gave off.

"Do you know what family means, Bunny?" Jack spoke quietly. After a short period of silence, Jack continued, refusing to look Bunny's direction. He didn't want to see the surprised look upon his face, just as Bunny didn't want to see the grief-ridden look on his. "It means not putting yourself before others. It means being their for them, watching after them, right? But… what if you don't have a family? What if you have no one?"

Silence.

Jack scoffed. "It means your alone. It means no one cares. No one's there for you, watching over you. It means you have to turn to something else…" the hand that was so delicately sifting through the ash clenched. "This…" he shook his head. "This was all I had. Sad, isn't it? A… a goddamn tree. But I was thankful for it, wasn't I? That's-that's what it's about, right? Being thankful? I…"

He took in a shaky breath. "It took care of me when the Wind couldn't. It-it listened to me when no one else did. It was my home when no one wanted me around, it cared when no one else cared. It was my family. And now," Jack scoffed. He raised his fist and slammed it into the ash. Bunny flinched.

"Now it's gone!" he screamed with a hoarse voice. "It's dead, all of it! Bec-because I was too greedy, too weak, too selfish, too stupid to even… to even… Aah!" he exclaimed, and in a furious motion, he took his hands and swept the ashes away and into the air. His hands furiously wiped his tears away and ran through his hair as he assumed his previous position. "I'm so sorry. Why did I even bother…?" he sobbed.

Bunny, now desperately trying to keep himself from losing his composure, hopped next to him and took Jack in his arms. "C'mere, Jackie."

Jack leapt forward, burying his ashy face into the fur on Bunny's neck and wrapping two shaky arms around him. Bunny thought silently to himself, how Jack had yet to be out of tears after the all the crying he's been doing lately.

Then again, they'd been building up ever since he became a spirit. Bunny didn't blame him. He couldn't take three centuries of neglect and mistreatment back.

But he sure as hell could help him recover.

"Listen ta me Jack, this isn't your fault, alrigh'?"

"Yes it is!" Jack cried, clenching his eyes shut. "If I hadn't left the Pole, Pitch would've never-"

Bunny withdrew from the hug and tilted Jack's face up. "Listen. You're right. It's gone. You're tree's gone now, okay? And I'm sorry, had I known that it meant that much to ya, I would've…" he sighed. Using his other paw, he wiped the smeared ash and dirt off of Jack's tearstained face. "But you know what I think? I think it's for the best. I think it's time for us - for both us - to start over." The winter spirit shot him a stunned look.

"Y-you think it's for the best that-"

"Did you have any other family before you became a Guardian, Frostbite?"

Jack's eyes widened before dimming and looking down in realization. "…No."

"All you had was your tree, right?"

"Y-yeah."

"And I'm guessing that there weren't many happy memories when you were with your tree, were there?"

Jack bit his lip. He gripped Bunny's fur and gazed at the dirt, his ashy hair covering the uppermost part of his face. "B-but it was all I had to remind myself…"

Bunny's emerald eyes shot back to the pile of perturbed ash in the center of the small clearing. "Well, how's about this?" he turned to the spot where the tree used to stand proud. Bringing his knees up to his chest and holding them there with one of his arms, Jack did the same and shifted his weight so that he was leaning against Bunny's side for support, which Bunny gently greeted by wrapping his arm around his shoulders. The Pooka took ahold of the top of Jack's hand using his other paw, guiding it to the center of the ash.

"How about we grow another?" he spoke softly as the burnt ground began to crumble and shift. "One that symbolizes rebirth. One that doesn't have to be for your tears and your questions, but one that goes to show that starting over begins with the first step…" from beneath Jack's trembling hand, a small sprout uncurled itself. It stretched, and as the sun caressed it, the newborn plant rapidly unsheathed its baby leaves and branches.

"And from then on, can touch the sky," the plant slowly began to take shape, bursting from the ash and reaching for the clouds overhead, but slowly began to stop growing once it was knee-high to Bunny.

"One that can be for you and Jamie, yah? One we can all come visit every year to tell stories and race each other and for starting snowball fights in the winter." A smile crept upon Jack's face. "Not one for when you feel you've got no one to turn to." he looked back at the newest guardian. "Leave that to us."

The sun finally pulled itself out from behind the horizon and shone as bright as it could. The wind was gently meandering throughout Burgess.

Jack, as always, was up in one of his tree's thick branches, fast asleep. But there were two things different about it that should be brought to attention.

His tree wasn't covered with tallies or blood or cries for help. Those, it seemed, had gone away. It wasn't deafened by questions or sobs or screams. Those had gone away too. No, this tree was in a much better state. It wouldn't be burdened with these things like the last one had.

And Jack?

He was in a better state too.

And as he snuggled closer into Bunny's soft embrace, he came to realize that he had something much more special than any other tree could give him.

He had a family, someone who cared and listened and healed.

And this was just the beginning.

Author's Note:

REVIEW PLEASE. : ) It makes me wanna write more.

969~696