Stay
A/n: I'M SO DAMN EXCITED TO BE BACK HERE AGAIN.
Hello guys! Finally, I have graduated from high school. No more exams, at least for the next few months. I'm so relieved to get back to writing this story. Feelin kinda sloppy though, since its been 2 years since I started this. My views on things have changed, so I feel like this story's gonna mature with me too. Sorry for being on hiatus for so long, so I hope you guys like this chapter! Thanks for staying with me:D
Chapter 24
The woods around me were eerily silent, swallowing in my screams as I stared and stared at the last place I saw Jack. Bubbles came up on the surface then disappeared. It was the coldest time of winter. Jack didn't stand a chance if I continued to leave him there. With regrets at my behavior swelling up in my throat, I scooted closer to the lake. Glassy black water bobbed up and down in the hole in the ice Jack, or rather I created.
Steeling myself, I knelt down and plunged an arm into freezing death. Cold racked up my body and I gritted my teeth, too freezing to even cry. Then I felt something.
A headache started to creep up my skull as I tugged with all my might at what felt like an arm. The fabric felt like Jack's sweater, which I hoped against hope was. But whatever I was pulling at was too heavy for me. Instinctively I reached in with my other arm. So scared was I that I didn't even feel my teeth chattering and my bones shivering. With a mighty force I pulled. Brown hair broke the black surface of the water. Relief flooded me as I tugged Jack out of the water when a small gasp sounded behind me.
I turned around, my teeth barred, when I realized it was Pippa. The poor girl must have followed us here and was now watching me with her eyes wide with amazement and fear. 'Get help, Pippa,' I urged. She hesitated before turning tail and running off the direction we came, just minutes before. Jack was too heavy for me to lift by myself, so I sort of dragged him some way away from the lake. His body was bloody cold. Ice started to form in his hair due to the cold breeze blowing. I winced as my head throbbed, but it was nothing compared to the pain of looking at the soaked, lifeless boy beside me, knowing that I had caused him this fate. Attempting to warm him, I stretched myself over Jack, hugging him to me. 'I'm so sorry,' I whispered, pressing my face against his neck. My hand felt his chest for a heartbeat…and there it was, very weak against my shaking palm.
An idea came to me. Finding a spot under Jack's ribcage, I pressed down hard. Water spurted out of his mouth, yet he still lay motionless. Desperately my fingers found a spot on his chest and I started to push. His lips were so cold and lifeless and blue that it took me awhile to realize I was crying. After a few minutes,
Jack's breaths came more smoothly, and that's when I heard footsteps running behind.
'Jack!' I gazed, awed, as Jack's mother appeared beside me, cupping her hands around her beloved son's face. Her hair was a mess, like she had just gotten out of bed which in this case couldn't be less true. Seeing her here was like looking at a ghost of a woman who found the strength to get out of bed because her son was in danger. I wanted to run away, afraid of her looking at me, the girl whom she trusted Jack with. Averting my eyes, I slowly edged my way further from the mother and sister. '(f/n), help me carry Jack to the house.' His mother's voice was calm. I lowered my head, careful to avoid her eyes as I supported Jack's body while she took his legs. Pippa snatched up the lantern and scampered off into the night, with me and Jack's mother following behind. I worried for her, wondering whether she could handle the strain and debating on whether I should tell her what happened. But not a word was said as we trudged back to the house.
Pippa held the door open and we transported Jack in carefully. I led the way to his bed and laid him down tenderly. 'Change his clothes, get the blankets and cover him, girls. I'll be in the kitchen if you need me.' Pippa silently went to a basket and pulled fresh clothes for Jack. I looked away, leaving his sister to the job and feeling that helping him change was kind of inappropriate. After she was done I got to work immediately, pulling the covers up and tucking them around Jack while Pippa stripped her bed bare, dumping the clothes on him. I watched her little hands fly around, smoothing the sheets and looking around for more blankets to warm her brother with. Feeling useless, I went to the fireside and picked up a log, throwing it into the already blazing fire. Flames danced in the hearth, mocking me for my own stupidity.
Looking back, I was such an idiot back there, so overcome with worry and jealousy that it made me not think straight. Realization hit me, and I knew that no matter what Jack did, I would still be hopelessly in love with him.
The sleeves of my jacket were still soaked through, so I moved closer to the fire, wanting to dry them. I could hear Jack's mother come out of the kitchen and her telling Pippa to "Feed this to Jack." Then she came over to me. I bit my lip, anticipating her disappointment. 'Thank you for saving my son, (f/n).' I turned to see her kind eyes smiling at me and was lost for words. 'Here, you can change into this or you'll catch a cold.' It was a pure white long-sleeved sweater that I'd never seen her in before. 'From my younger days,' she smiled. I shook my head. 'I…should be heading home, unless there's anything you need me to help with, ma'am.' Jack's mother frowned. 'In this weather? Look outside, darling.' She walked over to the window and pulled the curtains a peek apart. Sleet blew against the house, and I felt the howl of the wind in my chest. Hopefully Peggotty could keep my father from noticing I was gone for a while more.
'I'm dreadfully sorry, Mrs. Frost. It's all my fault Jack became like this.' I fell to my knees before her, begging forgiveness. '(f/n)! Get up, girl. I'm no queen.' The good lady pulled me up and planted a kiss on my cheek. Her eyes were tired yet her grip on my hands was firm. 'Think of it no more, dear. It was an accident. Pippa told me what she saw. You could have waited for more help, but you just went right in. Thank you, my dear.' I dazedly let her hug me before taking the sweater, letting her usher me to the bathroom. Clutching the soft fabric in hand and listening to the beat of the wind against the creaky planks, my eyes filled with tears. Jack's mother was a literal angel.
I honestly thought she would have cast me out the house. How I could ever repay her kindness I don't think I'd ever know. And to think she found the strength to pull herself out of bed when Pippa called her, to rush to aid her son!
A gust of wind banged on the planks of the bathroom wall, and I prepared myself for certain doom. But they held fast. Quickly I changed out of my wet garments and put on the soft, soft sweater. It was so comfortable, and I felt instant warmth.
Outside, Pippa was holding a wooden spoon filled with a clear liquid to Jack's lips. I gazed at him anxiously as she tilted the spoon, pouring the soup into his mouth. He swallowed and coughed but remained unconscious. 'Please stay the night, (f/n).' Pippa glanced up at me, putting the bowl on the bedside table. Her hair was matted to her forehead with sweat despite this cold weather. I used the dry part of my old clothes to wipe it away. 'You're not mad at me?' I inquired. The little brunette shook her head, still staring at me. 'Okay then,' I pulled a chair over to sit with Pippa. She was staring at Jack's face, pondering something. My eyes also drifted over to him, marveling at how good he could look even in a senseless state. His slightly parted lips were less blue now, a good sign that he was warming up. Someone had placed a steaming cloth on his forehead and at his neck. Ice shined in Jack's wet hair. So I took a cloth and started to dry it, carefully prying the ice bits off his brown strands. 'Maybe you could wake Jack up by kissing him, (f/n).' Pippa's words caught me off guard. I laughed, 'Nice one, pumpkin .'
'No, I'm serious.' She scooted closer to me. 'In fairytales, it's always the prince who wakes the princess up by kissing her. Don't you think it works the other way round?' I took in her shining hopeful eyes, visibly tired by the night's events. Suddenly everything that happened came crowding into my brain, and I heard myself repeating those hateful words to Jack again. I held my head in my hands and felt the hot tears wet my sleeves. 'I'm sorry, Pippa. Not now.' I watched as Jack's chest rose and fell, wondering what I would have done if he died right there. I would never live again, that I knew. To think that he went through all that trouble for us, just to have me bark at him ungratefully like a mad dog when he came home.
I'd make a terrible wife, I thought to myself, wanting to bang my head against the wall. I could give selfishness a whole new meaning. Being an only child sure made me spoilt. With downcast eyes I gazed at Pippa reach out a small hand and hold her brother's, her lips moving as if in prayer. I got up and sat myself down on the chair at the drawing table, resting my head on the wood.
When Jack's mother shook me up, it was already dawn. Snow was falling, but the storm had quailed. Jack was still unconscious, and Pippa had fallen asleep beside him. 'You must hurry, (f/n), before the sun comes up.' Her eyes were filled with calmness and a love only a mother could show. For a flash I saw my own mother in her, and I quickly turned away before the feelings all came. 'You've been too good to me, miss.' I smiled at the floor. She squeezed my shoulder and sighed before walking into the kitchen. I picked up my own clothes and changed into them, leaving the sweater folded on the table. My eyes landed on Jack's figure strapped down onto the bed with all those blankets to thaw him. Silently, I crossed the floorboards and stopped by the bedside. All I wanted to do was to wake him up and have him hold me.
I knelt down and stroked his hair out of his face. His features were sharpened by time during the months when he was gone. In that moment I felt nothing but love for him, and I would've done anything just so he'd open his brown eyes and smile at me again. I thought of what Pippa said to me the night before, and without thinking I leaned down and pressed my lips against Jack's. Straightening up, I anticipated a miracle of some sort, but Jack still lay there motionless. Stupid me, as if a fairytale kiss would have awoken my prince. This was the real world, (f/n). No one can resurrect anyone and that's a fact. Pippa had great imagination, though. I'd have to compliment her on that one.
I hurried home, keeping cautious as I weaved my way down the alleys and roads filled with powdery snow. Someone had opened the front gates of the house, and I hastily climbed up the vine and dropped through the window into my room. Fatigue rushed at me all at once. Stumbling upon my bed, I closed my eyes and sunk into a restless sleep.
'How do you see love, Jack?' I stared up at the polished wooden ceiling and listened as Jack fiddled about with the channels on TV. 'How do you want me to describe it, (f/n)? Practically? Abstractly? Romantically?' I heard the television being switched off and Jack lay down on the bed by my side. His hands wrapped around my waist and pulled me towards him, so I got a full whiff of his winter scent as I pressed my face against his neck. 'I don't know, whatever you think it is.' My hand ran lightly through his white locks as my lips left kisses from his ear down his neck. 'Hey, what're you trying to do, naughty girl?' Jack grinned as he drew back to look at me. I shrugged my shoulders innocently. He drew in a breath and twirled a lock of my hair, deep in thought.
'Love…man, I don't know how to explain that. So I'm not going to.' Jack produced a smile of finality and kissed me. 'Hey, do you think you can avoid my question just by kissing me?' I put my hands on my hips. 'Well, it wouldn't be the first time I succeeded, you know,' Jack replied, winking at me. I raised an eyebrow. He threw his hands up in the air and shook his head, his piercing blue eyes laughing at me. '(f/n), love is unexplainable to me. Just like you are. However hard I try, I'll never be able to capture perfectly your smile, your laugh, your personality, your everything in any way. I mean, if it's possible, then I don't think I would love you as much as I do now. You surprise me every day, and that's just a mere portion of the mystery you are to me. I love you for that.'
I stared at Jack until it must have gotten uncomfortable for him. He waved his hand in my face and I blinked. 'Seems like someone has been taking classes on dramatic speech, hasn't he?' The winter spirit rolled his eyes, making me laugh. 'Jack, that was wonderful, but I'm kind of an open book don't you think? All this talk about mystery and surprising, I don't think that interesting a person.' Blush radars would have gone berserk if tested on my cheeks at that moment. Jack gently smoothed a lock of hair behind my ear and took my hand. 'For your information, my lady, one of the mysteries about you that I have yet to solve, is how I can get you to stop being this attractive so that I won't think about kissing you almost every second of the day.'
That afternoon, the snow was falling onto my windowpane and the air outside must have been chilly enough to freeze the neighbour's cat to death. Besides the weather, all I remembered were Jack's crystal-like blue eyes meeting mine as I leaned in to kiss him softly. 'You're gonna have to work harder on that mystery, Jack Frost,' I muttered into his ear before our lips met again, my hand grasping a fistful of Jack's soft hoodie.
A bright light enveloped us, and I found myself sitting in my usual seat in the biology lab. All the other seats were filled, except for the one beside me. Our teacher wasn't Mrs. Lin, but an old man who seriously needed to shave. Class had started, but instead of explaining the anatomy of the cow shown on the slide, this old creak was rambling on about the tooth fairy and then Sandman. When he came to Santa Clause, everyone lost it. I buried my face in my hands as the class erupted into peals of cackles. For some reason I was horribly embarrassed by the whole situation. Suddenly a boy with brown hair and brown eyes came striding into the room and sat down beside me. The old man's eyebrows shot up in delight when I heard a chair skid from the back of the room and saw Cameron rush at the boy. They fell to the ground wrestling with each other, and I felt a horrible sense of fear creep up my spine as I noticed all the black nightmares that were closing in on us. Somebody tugged my arm and pulled me out of their midst. Turning around, I heard the old man order, 'Run, (f/n), and don't look back!' He pushed me out of the classroom, and in the process the boy's eyes met mine, one brown and one blue. I gritted my teeth and bolted away from there, ignoring his cries for help, until one deadly shriek made my heart stop beating and threw me to the ground.
The freezing wind was roaring about in my room when I woke up. Chills ran all through me as I cursed myself for not closing the window. That and not covering myself with a blanket when asleep during wintertime was a recipe for the most disastrous cold, maybe even pneumonia.
One of the best things about sleeping is that you can take a break from your problems for a while. And that little bit of time after waking up when you're still in a dream-like state, it feels like all's right with the world. But once you drink some water and stare out the window, all the previous day's problems come crashing down on you like a tumbling house on fire. And you're as messed up as you were before.
Panic attacks threatened to rack up my body as Jack's gaunt pale face rose up in my mind. I tried to calm myself down, telling myself that I couldn't possibly cut through that raging snowstorm and make it to his house alive. I didn't even know what time of the day it was, the sky was so dark and foreboding. So I diverted my attention to the dreams I just had. They freaked me out, since they seemed to take place in a totally different world. The funny thing was that I actually knew the name of the boy who knocked my classmates, and he looked a hell of a lot like Colin Leggard! Whats more, the old man was particularly familiar, and no doubt the helpless boy was Jack!
Finally everything hit me hard like a train. That may have been just a bizarre dream, but suddenly I could feel everything coming back to me now. That was my grandfather who saved me, and Jack was gonna land himself in huge trouble, if that was what the dream was trying to tell me. Also, I had fuzzy memories come back to me about stuff like the TV, Jack and I spending time alone on my bed, and a certain dog...
This was crazy. I was crazy. I am me now. This is me. Not (f/n) from a different world. This was (f/n) from Burgess in the 18th century. I repeated these words over and over to myself, but they were unconvincing. I felt like a failure, with my boyfriend unconscious and still being able to have an identity crisis at the same time. Oh what would Manny say...
'Oh my gosh!' I jumped up from my bed and shrieked out loud, then covered my mouth quickly. Trembling with excitement, I started to recall everything that led up to this point in my life, until the meeting with the Man in the Moon. Yes, it was him. He put me here, so that I could find Jack and fall in love with him so we could defeat Pitch Black. I was so ecstatic that I found myself jumping all over my room with my mouth hurting from smiling. I got the first part down already, but now that Jack was in a coma, I didn't know what would happen after that. What if he just turned back into the winter spirit, and forget about me forever?
Nonsense, (f/n). I decided that I would go back again tonight, even if it killed me to walk through a wild storm.
That night, I once more snuck out of the house, praying that no one would see me. I reached Jack's front door with great difficulty, and my heart thumping like it would never see another day again, which would probably be the case if Jack really forgot about me. I knocked on the door gently and saw Pippa's face through the crack of the door before she let me in. I greeted her and Jack's mother, and turned to see Jack sitting upright in bed. I felt a tug on my sleeve, and bent down to hear Pippa whisper in my ear, 'Did you kiss him? If you did, it worked! See what I told you?' She was smiling broadly at me, all her teeth showing.
At first I couldn't comprehend what was happening as I walked over to Jack. Looking down at Pippa, I gave her a dazed smile and turned to look at Jack's eyes. Instantly a chill ran through my whole body, for his eyes were a stunning blue. I hesitated for a moment, blinking again and again to make sure it really was Jack. There was a sort of bewildered look in his eyes that I noticed before he smiled at me. In a flash I was in his arms, kissing his face and muttering sorry's as I held him tight. 'Jack, I'm so sorry, please forgive me, oh please...' All this I kept repeating like a chant until he cleared his throat. Startled, I got up and watched as his eyebrows furrowed while he observed me. He held me at arm's length and gave me an awkward smile. 'I apologize, miss...but who are you?'
I swear my heart stopped beating.