Okay, I am genuinely convinced there is something wrong with me, I have now updated three consecutive days in a row, two over three thousand, one over four thousand words. Reviews are fueling me better that coffee at this point, and coffee is like some kind of freaking drug for me. It can be rather frightening at times.
But I digress(I love that phrase). Onto reviews!
MoonGirl1155- Thank you! It seemed like Jack's personality to do so, I mean he ended up dead to save his sister's life, so it's only logical he would help her, too.
TigerLilly1995-I'm glad you think so, but you don't need to rewrite your stories. I promise you, my writing did NOT start out like this, I just never posted the sucky ones online And her sleep issues will be revealed, all in due time, my dear, all in due time.
Fluffythorne- I am ever so pleased my character's sarcasm amuses you. As for Jack's remark, I'm not sure why I used that word. I simply don't know. Her father will also be explained in due time and I'm glad you like Mia as well. I'm willing to bet you like her more after this chapter*smirks*. For the ice, I thought it only logical that He would have fears of seeing someone on the ice again, especially on that pond. Lastly, you can just love them both.
KikaKatTIOI- Mmmh, yes, Jack can be rather shmexah, can't he? It's so cute when he's all protective, I want to cry! Oh man, I am going to have tears from this chapter, is it possible to get feels over your own story?(Sound familiar? I stole that phrase from you, hope you don't mind)
Lokirka- OH MY GOD I LOVE ALL OF THOSE BANDS! If we aren't sisters, we are now, I dub you as thee. Can you send Jack after me now? I feel the need to be rewarded…
Jack stayed outside Willow's window for what little remained of the night. It was almost three in the morning before he had called Sandy to help Willow sleep, and he was sure she would have to get up early for some reason or another. Karma rode on her heels too much for her not to.
For a while, he could see her mother stumbling through the house with the whisky bottle in her hand, each time taking every ounce of self control he had not to send a carefully positioned icicle through the window.
Eventually, though, she collapsed onto a broken armchair, passed out drunk and snoring like a band saw.
His gaze could never leave Willow's small frame curled on her bed for long. Even from the oak tree, he could see how swollen her cheek was beneath the bandage. He had hoped to see the inflammation go down as she slept, but only seemed to swell more, if anything.
Eventually, the sky began to lighten and the clock on the wall opposite to her bed read six thirty when she began to stir, the last remnants of the golden dreamsand dissipating. He watched as she carefully slid out of bed, her fingers brushing over her cheek, wincing slightly as she did so. She took a change of clothes, stuffing them into her bag before sliding her window open as quietly as she could manage, slipping out into the frigid morning.
Jack followed her as she slipped through the iced-over streets of Burgess, until they came to a twenty four hour gas station. Willow slipped inside, re-emerging a few minutes later in clean jeans and a faded black T-shirt with skulls in top hats and green tribal shamrocks, suggesting an old St. Patrick's Day shirt, beneath her jacket.
After that, she wandered around aimlessly for a while, eventually ending up at the park. She brushed the snow from a bench, before sitting down and pulling her knees to her chest. Her fingers began to probe the cut again, causing her to flinch at the initial contact, but only once. She had brought a handful of snow to her cheek, when Jack drifted down in front of her. She glanced up at him, unsurprised, before her gaze returned to the snow.
"You didn't have to keep following me, you know. You could have come down as soon as I left my house." her voice was a touch on the scratchy side, though that was only to be expected from the night she had. She glanced up at him again. "I knew you wouldn't leave. I didn't have to see you to know you were there."
She was right. Even if he hadn't promised to keep watch, he wouldn't have left anyway. He would never subject her to that monstrous woman again, if he could help it.
"Okay, I'll remember that." He saw where the snow in her hand was both melting and turning her hands a numb shade of red. "Here, let me, your hand must be freezing." he gently nudged her hand away from her face, to replace it with his own. He was right, there was very little difference in the temperature of his hand and hers as he pushed it away. Her hand slid into her pocket as she leaned, ever-so-slightly, into the cool relief of his hand.
"Your hand is freezing, too, maybe you should spend less time out in the snow." she murmured, causing Jack to chuckle.
"This is coming from someone who got up at six thirty for a morning stroll in the ice and wind." Jack pointed out as lightheartedly as he could, though he knew her true goal was to leave her house before her "mother" awoke.
"That may be true, but I'm also wearing shoes as I stroll through that ice and wind. And I didn't have anything else to do until work." she said, gesturing to her knee-length shoes before pointing to Jack's lack of them.
"Alright, fine, you got me. Is there somewhere you were going to go? I noticed you changed your clothes at the gas station, but I don't think anyone at that pond, who didn't know about… last night, would notice or care." She lifted her face from Jack's palm before answering.
"No, probably not, but I have a job at Joe's, you know, the coffee place? Joe or Mia might have noticed." she shrugged.
Assuming her boss' name was Joe, considering the name of the shop, he asked, "Who's Mia?"
"She's one of my regulars. She comes in almost every day during my shift, so, after a while, I ended up getting to know her pretty well. She works at the library."
Jack vaguely recalled Jaime talking about one of the librarians whose name was Mia. "Short, dark-skinned, hair always pulled back with a red band?" he asked, getting a curious look from Willow.
"How do you know her?"
"My friend Jamie volunteers at the library. He made a few comments about one of the librarians, whom he called Red for a while, because he could never remember her name and she always wore a red band around her hair." Jack leaned back against the bench. She almost followed suit, but then looked back at him.
"Wait, you said Jamie volunteers at the library? How old is he, because he has to be at least eighteen to do that." He could hear in her tone that her question wasn't the point of her confusion.
"Jaime just turned twenty one." he answered, knowing already what her next question would be.
"How did you meet him?" Or so he thought.
"I was expecting you to ask how he could see me."
"I remembered you saying something about a Jamie when you were telling me you were a Winter Spirit. He and his friends are the only ones who are not little kids who can see you." she explained.
"Hm, you were paying closer attention that I thought. I met him a little over eight years ago, when he was thirteen. He was the first person to ever believe that I existed and he last person to believe in the rest of the Guardians. It was because of him that we were able to defeat Pitch." He waited for the obvious question, and, this time, was not disappointed.
"Who is Pitch?"
"In a nutshell, he's the Boogeyman, but he almost won. He feeds off of fear, and, with that, was trying to make enough children stop believing in us so he could… basically throw the world into the Dark Ages again." Jack's rough explanation was enough for her to understand who he was, but there was an odd sense of relief across her face when he finished.
Glancing down at her cheap, though operational, watch, she stood up from the bench. "I have work at seven thirty, I should get going. I get off at four." she said, brushing some stray snowflakes from her jeans and sleeves.
She set off towards Joe's, Jack following closely behind her. As she walked, she thought about what Jack had said about keeping an eye on her. Though most people would find that creepy, she was actually glad for his protectiveness of her. She had almost no friends in her life, and was used to being lonely and, in a sense vulnerable. Not necessarily in a physical way, she could defend herself just fine, but in a more emotional way. She had never really had someone to stand up for her when she was bullied for being a freak with a drunk for a mother. It was refreshing to know that she finally had someone who was looking out for her.
The coffee shop was very close now, so she turned to tell Jack he would have to go, but he had disappeared, though she suspected he was very nearby.
The bell on the coffee shop door rang out at her entry, Joe barely glancing up from wiping down the counter. Willow was the only person who would have been there.
"Mornin', Willow. Any particular reason why you're fifteen minutes early?" he asked, giving her a slightly groggy grin.
"No sir, nothing besides I couldn't sleep." she answered. She stepped behind the counter, grabbing her nametag from the plastic coffee canister kept under the counter for employees after hanging her jacket on one of the pegs in the corner.
"Is that so? Well, I hope you can get better- What in heaven's name happened to your face?" he exclaimed when he looked up, seeing her face clearly for the first time.
Her mind scrambled to come up with a feasible answer than wouldn't result in CPS getting called. "Uhm, I was attacked by the stray cat in our neighborhood. I had found her kittens, but I didn't know she was nearby." This wasn't completely untrue, as her neighborhood did have a stray that had scratched her before and Joe knew it, but nothing even close to the swollen mess that was her cheek.
"That must have been one hell of a pissed off cat, to have completely mutilated your cheek that way! Maybe you should go home and rest. I don't want to be working you while you could get an infection." The worry in his tone was overrided by his words.
"No, I'm fine, Joe! I got it taken care of, it won't get infected, it's just a little swollen." she said quickly.
Joe gave her a long look. Her cheek was more than a little swollen, half of her face had expanded, but her eyes begged him not to send her away.
"Alright, just this once, but only because you're the only one with a morning shift. If that cut starts bothering you, though, don't you hesitate to say something. Okay?" His words were firm, but his tone was soft and gentle.
"Understood, sir." At her remark, Joe smiled just a bit.
"Got a gash in her face, yet still is polite as ever." he murmured once he was back in his office.
(*)
Willow was stacking Styrofoam cups and filling napkin dispensers, when she heard the chime of the door. She internally groaned in dread of the coming encounter with Mia.
"Morning, Willow!" her chipper voice rang through the shop.
"Morning, Mia." she still didn't turn, but she couldn't keep her back to her for much longer. Might as well get it over with.
"I was thinking, instead of hot chocolate- Oh my god! Sweetie, what on Earth happened to you?" her brows furrowed as concern etched its way across her face.
Avoiding her eyes, Willow told her the same thing she had told Joe.
"A cat did that to you?" she looked at her disbelievingly. "Honey, I hate to break it to you, but I just don't buy that. Cats don't do that." she pointed to Willow's cheek, but the girl remained silent. Mia sighed. "I'm sure you have a good reason for not telling the truth, you don't seem like the type to lie needlessly, but whoever you're protecting doesn't deserve it."
The I know on her face was etched more clearly that if a Sharpie had written it.
"Nothing for me today, dear. I've suddenly lost the taste for coffee this morning." she gave her a look, not of pity, but of… hope? Hope that she could stand up and tell someone the truth. Hope that she would tell whom needed to be told.
The chime of the door echoed in the shop eerily.
(*)
Stepping out into the cold air, Willow began walking away from the shop, Joe having let her off at two instead of four because of her injury. Her cut was burning as if a row of lit matches were pressed against it, though she still hadn't said anything. Joe, however, noticed that her cheek was a much brighter red that it should have been and sent her home. She had barely circled to the back of the building, taking a shortcut to the park that she rarely used because of the rough undergrowth and uneven terrain, when Jack descended in front of her once again.
"What happened to four?" he asked, his tone a touch playful and a touch concerned.
"Joe kicked me out because my cut was turning red." Her tone was a little too casual for his liking, but he didn't say anything. He brushed her hair out of the way, as it hung over her eye and cheek to cover the injury, to see her entire check was inflamed.
He trailed his fingers over it, almost jerking back. The surface of her skin was so hot against his icy hand that it burned the tips of his fingers. He couldn't imagine how it must feel to her. He placed his hand over the gash, trying very hard to ignore the intense fire beneath his palm.
Relief flitted across her face, making up for the burn. "Thank you. You have no idea how nice that feels." she told him. The searing heat beneath his hand was already beginning to fade as his hand numbed the pain. Only a few minutes later, Willow pulled her face from his wintry touch, though it had still been quite warm beneath his hand. She began walking through the rough brush that grew around the knee-height fence behind the line of shops.
Knowing where she was headed, Jack rolled his eyes, following her and stopping her once more.
"Y'know, you can be maddeningly stubborn sometimes. You are aware my ability to fly didn't vanish overnight, right?"
Her eyes didn't hold their usual joking demeanor. "I know, but I don't want the wind blowing against my face. I'd rather walk." Her voice was more introverted than usual, causing a flash of anger to shoot through Jack. What her mother had done had pushed her over the edge. It had broken her in some miniscule way. Jack only hoped he could find some way to fix it.
His feet gently brushed the snow as he followed her on foot. The quiet stretched on through the long minutes as the pair walked in silence. Jack glanced at Willow every few minutes, her eyes never moving from the ground, her arms wrapped tightly around her torso, though he suspected it wasn't from the cold.
Finally reaching the pond, she immediately curled up on her rock, not bothering to brush the snow from it as she pulled her knees to her chin. Her eyes remained downcast as Jack shuffled in the snow, unsure what to do.
"You don't have to stay here, Jack." Her low voice startled him. "It's not like anything will bother me out here, no one comes here."
Had her face not have been cut and swollen, or her tone not have been so flat, he may have even considered her words, but that was not the case. He couldn't leave her in the middle of the woods, as small and vulnerable as she looked, it wasn't who he was.
"I told you I would keep an eye on you, so you're not getting rid of me that easily."
"Jack, I can take care of myself, I'll be fine. Don't waste your time babysitting me." Her eyes still didn't leave the ground, though her half-hearted tone suggested that she didn't really want him to go, but she didn't want him to feel stuck there, either.
"If you can take care of yourself, why do you let her push you around? What she's doing is wrong and you won't even stand up for yourself!" The smallest note of anger slipped into his tone, but he stopped and took a deep breath, quieting his words. "Because of it, you now have a huge cut on your face, which will most likely leave a scar. How did she manage to cut you, anyhow?
"It was probably her wedding ring. The set sits above the band. It wouldn't be the first time her ring has cut me." Her hand unconsciously trailed over her right arm, just beneath her shoulder. Jack gritted his teeth in realization that there was probably another scar there.
"Then why don't you stand up to her? Defend yourself!" he said, exasperated. Her head snapped up, anger of her own flashing in her bi-color eyes.
"You think I haven't tried that?! All it gets me is another punch, twice as hard! It's never worth it!" her voice rose in volume as she ranted, her fists slamming into the boulder she was perched on when she finished. Her head dropped onto her knees and her hands wrapped her legs, light shadows on the sides of her hands from where she had struck the stone, which would probably end up as bruises.
Upon seeing this, Jack backed off a bit, touching his staff on random rocks and trees, causing frost to blossom on then in intricate, fern-like patterns.
"I'm sorry for shouting. Sometimes I let my anger get the best of me." She peered up at him from behind her knees.
"No, you had every right to yell. I shouldn't have gone that far."
"But you're right! I should stand up for myself, I shouldn't be beaten into submission by an over controlling, vindictive mother, but it's easier to be a coward about it. Though it may not help me in the long run, keeping quiet saves me a lot of pain." Her whispered words carried clear as a bell, despair seeping in to her voice.
Jack looked her again, but this time, didn't see the small, defenseless girl he had before. He saw a young woman who answers to no one, except the one person who forces her to through pain. He saw her inner strength and determination to not be written off as a weak little girl.
He also saw her issues with trust because of her… difficult childhood, her lack of control for her anger stemming from years of bottled up hate and resentment towards her mother. He saw the lonely girl who craved to be recognized as something more than a shadow in the background.
"Then maybe it's time you have someone who stands up for you." She looked up to see Jack holding out his hand to her. His eyes were soft and earnest, promising her he would do everything in his power to be there for her.
Hesitantly, she slid off of the boulder, her hand reaching slowly towards his as if she expected it to disappear. She glanced back to his face, her reluctance melting when his eyes told her he would never leave her, and something broke inside her.
Her hand shot out, Jack's eyes widening in surprise as her slim fingers wrapped around his wrist, yanking him forward with much more force than he expected from someone her size. She wrapped her arms around him, clutching the fabric at his back with shaking hands like a lifeline. His arms twined around her small frame.
"Thank you."
Aww… Okay, I know at least one person will be wondering about Willow's sudden sentimentality, because she met Jack only a few days ago. I think that her actions were caused by the fact that no one has ever truly been there for her, and some kind of mental wall broke for her when Jack basically said he wouldn't abandon her like everyone else did. She craved to have just one person in her life whom she didn't have to be afraid around, who she could open up to. She decided to take the chance to let someone in for once.
I hope this deflects any questions from that, but I'm kind of expecting them anyway(you know who you are). I'm going to feed the craving and start on chapter four now, so it might be up in the next couple of days. Don't be too disappointed if it isn't up tomorrow, though, because these fast updated are extremely abnormal for me.