Icy Shadows

Summary: After visiting Jamie, Jack finds some fearlings attacking someone. He rescues the person only to find out its...a injured teenage Pitch? How did that happen? Jack/Pitch

Hey guys just quickly uploading this at college. I get internet back on Friday yes! Anyway sorry this chapter is a little long I just ended up writing and couldn't stop. Sorry if I ramble.

This is mostly a lighter chapter than the last one through there's still a little hurt comfort scene in it. I've decided Pitch along with you might be getting a little bored with Pitch being stuck in the infirmary so in this chapter he gets a tour of the place. Of course I have no idea what North's place layout and you weren't in the workshop for too long so sorry if I made mistakes or something.

Anyway hope you enjoy.

Chapter 4

It had been a week since Pitch had arrived at the North Pole. He was slowly on the mend, not in too much pain as much as he was before and he could manage to push himself up into a sitting position whereas before he often needed to be helped by Jack, North or one of the yetis. He couldn't move too much though as it hurt the side of his stomach where the largest of of all the wounds, he had needed to be stitched up, lay and his arm and leg were still in their casts.

North had told him if it was just his leg he would have to wait a few more weeks before he would be allowed to use crutches to walk and then have to wait longer yet before the cast finally came off but since his arm was broken too it was going to be a bit more difficult. Father Christmas had then trailed off having the look that Jack said was his idea look – the one he got when he thought of a new idea for a new brand of toys – on his face.

Pitch wasn't sure what idea North had gotten that day but he didn't really want to find out.

Jack would visit every day, often sitting on the bed and chatting to him for long periods of time before flying off to spread winter or something. North would also visit when he wasn't in the midst of work, to check to see if Pitch was doing okay and how his injuries were mending. Pitch was still uncertain by the Russian's presence, especially after that talk they had, but he was slowly getting used to it.

Sandy would sometimes stop in, to make sure the grey teen wasn't having nightmares. Pitch didn't know what the golden man thought during those visits. Sandy didn't seem to be spiteful or show any hostility towards Pitch; in fact the sandman was pretty nice to him considering all the things Pitch put him through. Pitch still thought that the Sandman was still slightly wary though.

Tooth did popped in a few times while he and Jack were talking but she didn't seem to know how to act at times. One minute she could be really friendly and chatty – she seemed to really like Pitch's teeth, claiming the one she had knock out was very white and shiny – the next she would be nervous and unsure. She would often end up talking to Jack more than she would to Pitch. Pitch assumed she was still uncertain because of what he did to her fairies, which was understandable. He had locked them in cages after all.

As for Bunnymund, he never entered the infirmary. Jack seemed a little disappointed but Pitch decided it was probably just as well.

Pitch was slowly getting bored being stuck in bed all day. Even when you were visited by everyday by people, when you couldn't do anything other than lie in bed while they could freely move about, it did get on your nerves slightly. And there was also the long periods when Jack would be gone and North and his yetis were too busy to keep him company. There were the elves but Pitch grew frustrated with them easily and by the end of the week they were too afraid to go near the door anymore.

All he could do in these moments was sit and stare at the ceiling, believing he was going mad or just sleep to pass the time. Sleep was a rare option as, despite claiming he wasn't scared of nightmares – he was the nightmare king for man in the moon sake's – he was scared. Usually he would have to wait for Sandy before he could sleep and of course the Sandman was either sleeping during the day or busy giving other children dreams throughout the world at night.

"Hey ya Pitch!"

Also another reason why he usually chose not to nap during those long periods was because he would jump right out of his skin as people – especially Jack – seemed to appear out of nowhere.

"Do you have to startle me all the time?" Pitch asked, rubbing his face tiredly.

Jack paused as he thought Pitch's words over, leaning on his staff as he hovered next to the bed, "Hrm let me think...probably, yeah."

Pitch shot Jack a glare but after a week Jack just grinned in return. Eventually Pitch gave up glaring and sat up on the bed, rubbing the last of Sandy's sand out of his eyes.

He looked up at Jack and paused, frowning, a confused expression crossing his face. Jack noticed.

"What?"

"There's...something moving in your hair." Pitch said warily.

Indeed Jack's white hair seemed to be moving on its own accord. The movements were too big to be anything like nits or whatever mortal humans got in their hair. This however did not calm Pitch down as he backed away from Jack slightly, his hands going protectively to his own spikes.

Jack went to feel his hair in confusion and stopped short as suddenly his hair let out a squeak and out flew one of the tiny Tooth's fairy, giggling softly.

"Baby Tooth! How long were you in there?" Jack cried in delight as the fairy flew over to him. She chirped in response and Jack's face became one of concentration as he listened to what she was saying.

"You can understand her?" Pitch asked in surprised.

Jack glanced over to him and shrugged, "Er, sort of. Tooth taught me how and I've been spending a lot of time with Baby Tooth so I sort of understand. Only if I really concentrate on her chirps though; it's really hard to tell the difference between them otherwise. I actually can only understand Baby Tooth; the others fairies just sound like a bunch of birds. Tooth says it's because they all have their own certain chirps and squeaks."

"What did she say then?" Pitch asked and a smirk flashed onto Jack's face.

"Apparently this little fairy here is currently skiving off work and hid in my hair in case I ran into Tooth on the way here," Jack said and Baby Tooth's cheeks flushed, a little ashamed of skiving off, "She said she really wanted to spend time with me."

Baby Tooth chirped happily in agreement and then her eyes focused on Pitch, not looking away for a second.

"Um...hi..." Pitch said uncomfortably.

A scowl appeared on her face and all at once she began to be squawking angrily, flying over to Pitch and poking him on the nose with her tiny finger.

"Hey, hey, easy Baby Tooth!" Jack cried.

"She's the one I had in Antarctica, right?" Pitch asked. He recognised her for her eyes were a different colour and she had a tiny birth mark on her cheek.

"Yeah," Jack replied, scratching the back of his neck uncomfortably, "I guess she's still a bit cross about that."

Pitch flinched as the fairy continued to yell at him in her fairy language. He was glad he didn't understand her; he wasn't sure if he really wanted to hear what she was yelling about. From the way her arm would gesture to Jack he could already guess she wasn't talking so much about her being trapped in his hand but rather about what he did to the winter spirit.

Then just as suddenly as she had started, Baby Tooth stopped ranting. She took a deep breath. Then, pointing a finger at Pitch in a last warning gesture ,she flew back over to Jack and sat in the surprised boy's hand. She looked up at him and cooed happily.

"I think she just wanted to get it out of her system." Jack said as the little fairy seemed to be happy again. She was no longer glaring at Pitch but smiling at him.

"Um...okay..."

Pitch had no clue what just happened and he wasn't sure what to make of the fairy's sudden change in behaviour. He eyed her warily, half expecting her to start squawking again. She just looked back with her big eyes blinking innocently as if nothing had happened.

"Anyway, I got you this."

Jack flew over to the door. He was gone for a moment before coming back, with him a-

"A wheelchair?" Pitch asked. He immediately perked up.

"I thought you might be getting fed up being stuck in bed all day." Jack said with one of his cheerful grins, "I know I would be."

Pitch felt smile grow on his face. It faded slightly however as he stared at the wheelchair, "You really didn't have to do that,"

"Pitch..." Jack whined, "Are we going to have to go through the whole 'I don't care that you're the bogeyman' thing again?" He sent Pitch a smirk.

Pitch let his grin return, "Guess not," He said.

"Good," Jack said, his smile widening, "Now let's get you onto this thing."

He wheeled the chair next to the bed and then flew over to Pitch, placing his hands under Pitch's armpits to help lift him up. Baby Tooth, wanting to help to, flew over to Pitch's hand and grabbed one of his fingers.

"Alright, on the count of three: One, two, three,"

Through Pitch could move himself without so much pain and, despite how skinny Jack appeared to be, he could lift Pitch fairly easily, it was still a difficult and painful progress to get Pitch out of the bed and onto the wheelchair. Poor Baby Tooth wasn't much help despite how hard she was trying, tugging at Pitch's finger and, when she gave up with that, pulling at his hair until Pitch was sure she would yank some of it out. Eventually through Jack managed to get Pitch settled onto the wheelchair seat, both he and Pitch panting in exhaustion.

"Next time we should probably just ask North," Jack said. Pitch nodded in agreement. The Russian could easily lift about almost anyone, let alone Pitch, with only one arm.

Once he got his breath back, Jack flew behind Pitch and grabbed the handles, Baby Tooth perching inside his white hair again, "Alright let's go!"

Pitch was a little worried that Jack was going to be the one steering. Especially when Jack whistled to the wind and suddenly charged forward. As soon as they were out of the door, Jack jumped onto the back of the wheelchair.

Pitch cried out and squeezed his eyes shut, expecting them to smack straight into the wall. When they didn't, he cracked his eyes open.

Luckily, for Pitch (and Baby Tooth who also let a squeak when Jack had jumped onto the wheelchair and had covered her eyes with her tiny hands), the wind had quickly obeyed Jack's call and had took charge of the wheelchair just as soon as Jack had jumped on. It had steered the wheelchair swiftly to the left and was pushing it along down the corridor at a fast, but safely controlled, speed. Jack let out a crow of delight and Pitch couldn't help but smile.

"You haven't had a full tour of Santoff Clausen have you?" Jack asked.

Pitch paused as he thought the answer through. He had been here, a few times, but they were usually during a destroy-the-guardians scheme and his main attention was usually the globe room. The longest time he had been there was when he had finally taken over and on the globe children's lights were rapidly switching off and of course he was once again focus on the globe; it was his fearlings who swarm through the entire place, destroying everything in their paths.

He shook his head in reply.

"Great; I'll show you around then." Jack said. He switched his voice to a mock tour guide tone, "And here we have the infirmary wards and the yeti's quarters. On the right you can see Phil's room which surprisingly is a complete utter mess despite that the yeti would usually yell at me if I happen to accidentally knock something over in the workshop and complains about messes all the time..."

Inside his room Phil, who happened to be cleaning said mess before he headed to work, started to grumble and shout at Jack. Jack just waved merrily at him as the wheelchair whizzed by. Inside Jack's hair, Baby Tooth giggled.

"Moving on, we enter the kitchen area where all sorts of meals – through mostly mince pies and fruitcakes and pretty much mostly Christmas food if I'm honest – which are all made by the lovely chefs here." Jack said waving at the yetis in there.

These yetis seemed less angry than Phil for they waved back but whacked Jack's hand when he tried to grab some of said mince pies. Jack shook his hurt hand and acted hurt and offended to which the yetis just rolled their eyes and went back to work. Then he nabbed a couple of cookies when they went past and the yetis weren't looking.

"Are you going to talk in that voice for the whole tour?" Pitch asked as Jack tossed him some of the cookies which he accepted gratefully.

"Yes," Jack replied snapping a piece of his cookie and offering it to Baby Tooth before biting into the rest of his. Baby Tooth ate the cookie delicately, doing her best to not let so much as a crumb fall into Jack's hair, through Jack reassured her he didn't mind if any did.

Pitch groaned and rolled his eyes. Jack smirked but decided to be kind and as, the wheelchair flew the chair down some steps, landing it smoothly onto the floor so not to jostle Pitch's wounds, switched back to his normal voice.

"This is the stables," Jack said, pointing over to another room, "That's where the sleigh is usually kept when it's not being used."

They passed the reindeers who all glanced up to see what was making the noise. When they saw Jack they cried in delight, through some of them were glancing at his pockets, expecting food to come out.

"Sorry guys, can't stop and I didn't have time to get you some carrots." Jack said, grinning; "Besides I gave you treats this morning."

The reindeers all pouted and went back to chewing on bits of hay. One, with an extremely shiny red nose, looked sadly as Jack passed.

"I'll see you later Rudolph, alright?" Jack called out to the reindeer.

Rudolph perked up, almost looking excited as a puppy would when it's master promised walkies. Jack laughed and the wind flew them up another set of steps and into another part of the Santoff Clausen.

"I see Rudolph's your favourite then," Pitch said, quirking his eyebrow.

"I like them all; really, they've all got their own unique personalities." Jack replied thoughtfully, "Actually Rudolph's quite a timid thing, really. He still shy around the other reindeers even North said, ever since that fog, they don't bully him anymore, in fact they all love him – like that song goes. It took me a while for him to let me pet him; North said he was even afraid of him at first. Now though he follows me about the stable like a little puppy. I have to always stop him from following me into the workshop at times."

Baby Tooth poked her head out of Jack's white locks so Pitch could see her and nodded in agreement, before chattering away, Jack listening hard and translating what she said to Pitch. The little fellow hadn't been scared of her as she was only a small thing but it had still been very shy when she had ever greeted it before. However now, seeing as she was a dear friend to Jack, Rudolph had started coming out of his shell around her too.

Pitch blinked in surprise. Ever since he heard that annoying song, he had thought that the red nosed reindeer would probably be a show off or something, seeing as it was always leading Santa's sleigh. Then again, Pitch never really listen to that song properly, seeing as it was a song that was played over and over and over again during Christmas, whenever Pitch heard it, he had the sudden urge to chuck something at whatever was playing that song to get it to shut up.

Jack steered the wheelchair around some elves that were stumbling around, getting in the way and flew them into the elevator, deciding the wheelchair was probably too heavy for the wind to lift it up a whole flight of stairs.

"So which floor do you want to go on?" Jack asked, "We can go onto the first floor which is where the workshop is, the second floor, which is where the globe room is, but there are some other rooms to explore up there as well, or the third floor which has the living room, the library, North's office, North's room, my room, the guest rooms exct."

"Um...how about we go to the third floor and work our way down again?" Pitch asked.

"Just what I was thinking," Jack said as he pressed the top glowing white button.

Feeling a tad safer that her mother wouldn't suddenly materialize out of thin air in an elevator, Baby Tooth flew out of Jack's hair for a bit. She sat down on the hand bars of the wheelchair and cooed softly, looking up at Pitch.

"She says you'll like my room," Jack translated.

Baby Tooth nodded – but before she could say anymore the doors slid open. They had reached the third floor.

With a worried squeak, Baby Tooth shot upwards and into Pitch's hair.

"Hey!" Pitch cried.

The fairy ignored him as she peered anxiously through his spikes. Through it was clear Tooth wasn't anywhere nearby, Baby Tooth didn't want to take any risks. She would be in so much trouble if Tooth found out one of the other fairies was covering for her.

Pitch shot Jack a glance who just shrugged in reply. Through Pitch was still wary of the fairy after earlier, he decided so far she had started yelling at him again, so it was probably okay to let her hide in his hair.

Jack whistled and the wind took control of the steering again, rolling them along the balcony. Jack reached out his arm to open a door so that the wind would roll them in and take them around a circle of the room before pushing them out again.

"This is the living room," Jack said as they entered, "This is where we often hang out when we're not on official guardian business."

Pitch glanced around the room. He noticed a tiny bit of frost still lingering on top of armchairs instead of on the seats or hanging off one of the large beams that were up close to the ceilings, attached to the walls, or on the window sill, and assumed these were the spots Jack often sat. They were mostly the furthest places away from the fireplace so Pitch assumed the armchairs that were close to the fireplace were the others seats. He had a much harder time trying to figure out who sat where and so gave up when they headed out of the door.

"That's North's office," Jack said pointing to a room as they whizzed past, "I'm not sure if he's busy in there or own at the workshop but it's best not to risk it. When he's in the middle of toy making he doesn't like being disturbed at the best of times."

Pitch nodded and they headed off to explore the next room, "This is the library,"

Pitch blinked in surprise at how big the place was, "How many books are in here?"

Jack just shrugged, "I don't know, thousands? Haven't really asked. There's a shelf of books in the living room, a lot of the time, the books we want to read are all in there. I think only North and Tooth come in here often; they like reading a lot."

Pitch felt a rustle in his hair as Baby Tooth buried herself more in the black spiky locks, just in case her mother was hovering by one of the shelves right now. However they went through the room without spotting anyone in there and Pitch heard Baby Tooth sigh in relief.

When they enter the next room, instead of letting the wheelchair carry on through it, Jack hopped off the chair. The wind slowed the chair to a standstill, the weight; Pitch had felt when it had been pushing them, gone as without Jack it could no longer push the wheelchair, not without creating a huge gust of wind anyway.

"And this is my room," Jack said.

The room wasn't too big, just as big as any guest room, really. However the ceilings had been painted a light shade of blue. Icicles were scattered around the room, stalagmites hanging of the ceilings. There were also ice figurines, mostly on the chest of drawers that sat by the bed, but the ones that were too big were standing at the end of the bed. Pitch didn't glance at them all but he noticed a Baby Tooth figure, a ice statue of that boy in Burgess and his little sister and on the chest of drawers the other four guardians. The windows were open, blowing snow in and onto the bed which had darker blue sheets, through it was hard to notice with all the snow. Through the wind and snow was making Pitch shiver, he guessed Jack preferred sleeping in snow than on a bed.

"Yeah, I still not used to sleeping on a bed yet," Jack said, scratching the back of his head when he noticed where Pitch was looking, "It's great but after three hundred years outside it's...uncomfortable." The white haired boy shrugged, "I hopefully get used to it soon but at the moment I can't sleep without having a lot of snow around me. Sorry, it's probably freezing for you in here. I'll shut the window."

"No, no, it's fine," Pitch said, he focused on the ice statues, wheeling over to the large ones that were at the end of Jack's bed, "Did you make these?"

"Yeah..." Jack said, "Just when I have time to kill or when I still can't sleep. They still probably need some work on them,"

Pitch touched the one closest to him, a replica of Rudolph. The many details made the ice almost look like the living thing, only the coldness of it and the blue sheen making Pitch stop from believing he was staring at the real Rudolph.

"Are you kidding? They're great," Pitch said.

Jack beamed in delight. Pitch returned the smile. He didn't know why but when Jack smiled he felt a strange feeling in his chest that made him feel lighter and lighter. Pitch furrowed his eyebrows in confusion for a split second but when the feeling disappeared, he decided it was probably just his imagination.

"Right next room!" Jack cheered and hopped back onto the back of the wheelchair.

Pitch was a little disappointed that they were leaving Jack's room, despite that he was shivering and his teeth were starting to chatter in there. He had wanted to look at the ice figurines more. The tour started to become a tad boring with the only other rooms being the guest rooms.

It was only when they were going through the last of them that Pitch realised something.

"Jack...why are we going into every single guest room?"

It was alright to go in one or two guest rooms maybe a little more if you were really keen. But to go into every single guest room was a little too much, especially seeing as they were all pretty similar. Jack was the guardian of fun and the spirit of winter. He would have gotten bored after touring the first guest room and had steered the wheelchair back to the elevator so they could continue the tour, why was he going through every single one?

Jack shrugged, once again scratching the back of his head nervously, "Well I thought if I showed you them all it would be easier for you to pick one as your room later on."

"My...room?" Pitch asked.

"Yeah," Jack said, "You're not going to be stuck in the infirmary forever. Once you at least can start using crutches you'll be able to move up here and of course once you're fully healed you can stay here too."

He then backtracked slightly, "I mean, if you want to stay here. If you want to leave when you're fully healed you can do that too."

Pitch felt the dark shadow of gloom sink down onto him once again and he scowled at the floor.

"Jack...I'm not going to stay here."

"W-Well if that's your decision then-"

"No!" Pitch yelled, surprising Jack – and himself, "I want to stay here. But do you honestly think I be allowed once I fully healed? When I'm in crutches and if your friends take pity on me, then maybe yeah. But once I'm able to walk with no aid whatsoever they'll kick me out."

"They wouldn't do that," Jack argued.

"Oh yeah? And how can you be so sure?" Pitch asked, crossing his arms, ignoring the wince as he crossed the broken arm this time as well.

Jack opened his mouth to reply. However no sound came out and he slowly closed his mouth again. He wasn't sure. Pitch felt slightly guilty but stay crossing his arms; knowing he was right.

"You can stay long as you want."

They both turned to find all four guardians standing there. Both boys blinked in surprise. A smile slowly grew on Jack's face.

"I can?" Pitch asked.

North stepped forward, Tooth and Sandy following him, one step behind. Bunny stayed by the door, his fury arms folded.

"Long as you want," North repeated, placing a hand on Pitch's shoulder, "If want to stay forever, you can. If want to leave, you can. It is your decision."

Jack's grin widened even further and he smirk at Pitch. Pitch returned the smirk with a tiny smile, still a little shock and bewildered. He could stay? Forever, if he wanted to? He never had been allowed to have that decision before, usually everyone just wanted to get rid of him at that was that.

"How come you're all here?" Jack asked.

"We've all decided to have the meeting today, mate," Bunny said and all of them turned back to the door.

The rabbit still glared at Pitch as he leaned against the door, clearly not liking that the grey teen was there. However there wasn't much malice in his eyes as Pitch thought could have been and he didn't say anything to the nightmare king, ignoring him, almost. Pitch decided this was probably a good thing.

"We were all heading to the globe room. We just came to fetch you." Tooth added.

"Alright then," Jack said, "Let me take Pitch to the living room and I'll be there in a sec."

The guardians nodded and headed off.

"Baby Tooth, don't think I know you're there." Tooth said as she reached the door.

Pitch's hair squeaked and Baby Tooth flew out, wailing apologies at her mother. Tooth just sighed and shook her head, through she wasn't really cross.

"We'll talk later, okay? Now head back to work – and don't let me catch you skiving again."

The little fairy quickly nodded and zipped out the room and out of sight, not daring to disobey her mother.

Like he said, Jack rolled Pitch into the living room, parking him near the fireplace, promising he'll be back later before flying off to the globe room for the Guardian's meeting. Pitch had no idea what they discuss in these meetings. Probably about the safety of the children and how many lights were on that globe or something of that sort.

After a few minutes Pitch got bored. He started to try and figure out how to make the wheelchair roll himself and after a few tries manage it. After spinning around in a circle and trying to see if he could do any tricks (he couldn't) he went over to the bookshelf Jack had mentioned early.

He immediately started to wonder which books were the ones Jack usually read, scanning the books in case there was still some frost or snow on the spine. He wondered if Jack even read. The winter spirit seemed to be always constantly moving about, Pitch couldn't really imagined him sitting on an arm chair, curled up with a book. Then again the winter spirit was also full of surprises so maybe it was possible.

Then Pitch wondered why he was wondering what books Jack read. Why did he want to know which ones were the ones Jack pulled out from the bookshelves, which one he read the most?

Shaking his head, Pitch picked one book – and something tumbled out of the bookshelf suddenly. Pitch managed to catch it before it hit the floor, wobbling slightly in his wheelchair but he managed to stable it.

Book completely forgotten, he stared at the object in his hand. It was an ice statue, by the looks of it, unfinished which may have been why it was hidden in the bookshelf. The figure was slender, wearing a fleece jacket, with eyes that seem to pierce through anyone who stared straight into them. The spiked hair was what gave the identity of the figure away to Pitch.

It was him.

I have no idea where the ice statues came from. I was thinking about using them in another fic I may or may not write then I thought they would be good to add them to Jack's room (to make it slightly different from the other Jack's rooms I read in fanfics) and then the idea of Jack making a ice statue of Pitch just popped out.

About Jack sleeping in snow..he is going to get used to sleeping in beds without it but I thought after 300 hundred years he wouldn't be used to it and so he has the window open to bring in snow for comfort.

Lol I love Baby Tooth! Can't add anymore to that.

Please leave a review ;)