This is a continuation of You Will Fear Me. There's going to be some POV switching in this one, but the linebreaks should make it easy to keep track of (unless I forget to put them back after eats them).
The cloud of black sand was still visible on the horizon when he heard someone call his name. Propping himself up on one elbow he looked to the side of the lake, spotting a familiar figure there.
"Oh, hey Cupcake."
He waved at her, trying to look like he was just casually resting on the ice. She did not look fooled. She frowned and lifted her long skirt up to her knees with one hand and took a few steps into the water.
"You're going to catch a cold."
"That doesn't usually worry you."
He smiled sheepishly as he sat up. He just needed to stand and walk off the water. He could do that. Even without the staff, he could still freeze the water under his feet. All he needed to do was stand. It shouldn't be so hard.
"Everything's fine, you know. I'm just taking a break."
Cupcake let go of the skirt as the water reached high enough that there would be no keeping it dry anyway. She just walked faster, until she could swim. Jack did not doubt that it was cold. But Cupcake showed no signs of it as she swam to his little floating platform of ice, grabbed the edge and started to swim backward back to the edge of the lake.
"I saw you fall."
There was little he could answer to that. She was not going to believe he was fine if she saw him just drop out of the sky. He let her pull his ice platform back on dry land. At fourteen, Cupcake was already taller than him, and much bigger, too. She slipped an arm around his shoulder and the other under his knees and easily lifted him. Jack could see her wet clothes starting to freeze. He struggled weakly in her grip.
"You'll freeze. Where are we going? I can just rest here."
"I'm taking you home with me. I'm not going to just leave you here. You don't look well."
He could hardly see what difference it would make, but her tone of voice told him she wasn't going to back down on this. He sighed and stopped struggling. He did not have the energy to protest. He felt drained. And his arm hurt. Hopefully he could just sleep it off. He needed his staff back, tough. He was useless without it.
Jack wondered what Pitch could possibly be thinking. The Guardians would learn of this, sooner or later, and they would go after him. He might hide, but for how long? Jack would have his staff back, eventually, and everything would be fine. Jack may not be good for much more than frosting windows without his staff, but he did not need to count only on himself anymore.
Cupcake shifted him around a little as she reached for her keys and tried to unlock the door without putting him down. They had arrived, apparently. No one seemed to be home. She carried him up to her room and gently placed him on the pink covers of her bed. Unlike many girls, she had never grown out of her love of pink. She looked down at him in worry, as if wondering what to do next.
"I'm all safe now, so you can put on something dry. I'm not going anywhere."
She nodded slowly and picked up some clothes in her drawers, throwing him a last concerned look before leaving the room to go change somewhere else. Jack let out a long sigh and closed his eyes. Things would get better soon. They had to.
Cupcake locked herself in the bathroom and hurriedly removed her wet, frozen clothes. Her worry over the entire situation had kept her from noticing how cold she was, but her fingers shook as she pulled on dry clothes.
She couldn't stop thinking about what she had seen. Jack, just falling off the air for no reason she could discern. Something bad must have happened, but what? Had he been in a fight? Against whom? The one the Guardians had fought before? Who had that been?
She could still recall most of the details of that night quite clearly, but that one thing was fuzzy in her mind. The Boogeyman? That sounded absurd even to her. She could not remember anything specific about their enemy from that night. As if he had simply faded away from her memory, leaving only a vague, dreamlike impression in her mind. Jack always told her to not worry about it.
Sighing, she walked back to her room. Jack was sleeping and she did not want to wake him. He looked like he needed his rest. She grabbed a thick, warm vest from her wardrobe and pulled it on to fight the chill that remained even after her change of clothes. Jack was right; she would likely catch a cold. She did not care.
Something had been bothering her ever since she found Jack on the lake and she finally realized what it was. His staff was missing. She had never seen him without it. While he would sometime put it down, he never got very far away from it. She hoped it had not fallen into the water and had been left behind. But he would have said something, no?
Cupcake shook her head. She would ask him when he woke up. She wished she had a way to call the Guardians. They should know about this. Maybe she could try to catch one of the little fairies who picked up teeth, but she would be lucky if she could find one. She did not know of any kids who lost a tooth today and she could not spend the night checking every kids' window just in case.
But there was one person she could call. He might not be any help, but he would want to know. So, picking up the phone, she called Jamie.
"So you said you saw him fall? And the staff was not anywhere around?"
Jamie could see that Cupcake was getting a little exasperated at his questioning. They had been over this when she called, but he needed to be sure. The entire situation had him close to panic. Jack told him before that the staff was like a part of him and that he needed it to use most of his powers. You don't just leave a part of you out of your sight. And, if Jack had been flying in the first place, he must have had it then.
"I saw him fall. I didn't see anything else fall as well. He was just lying on the lake when I got to him. He didn't say anything about the staff."
Cupcake's mother had returned before he arrived and they needed to have their whispered conversation in Cupcake's room, even with Jack sleeping there. It was that or locking themselves in the bathroom and that would have been more than a little suspicious. Seeing Jack like this had been painful. He was even paler than usual and for a moment, Jamie had feared he was dead.
"What are you two whispering about?"
They both turned quickly toward Jack, looking a little guilty that they had been talking about him while he slept. But the guilt was soon replaced by relief. Jack may not be looking his best, but as long as he was awake, he at least looked alive. Jamie almost threw himself at him, hugging him tightly.
"H-hey! Did you miss me that much? I haven't been gone that long."
"What happened? I heard you fell. Where's your staff?"
"It's... err... I don't know. But I'll get it back. Don't worry about it."
"Don't worry about it? Jack, we're your friends! We want to help you."
Jack thought about that for a while before smiling.
"There's one thing you can do to help me. Cupcake, do you have a pen and a sheet of paper?"
They exchanged confused looks, but Cupcake picked up what he asked for from the top of her desk. She handed him the items, but he shook his head.
"Not me. It won't work if I write it. One of you will have to do it."
"Write what?"
"A letter to Santa, of course."
To be continued
This will likely end up being at least four parts, actually. This one was longer than I had expected.
