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"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."
—George Orwell, Animal Farm

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"I demand you return me to my body at once! I will murder—"

Jack had stopped trying to get a word in edgewise half hour ago. He squatted on his haunches, one hand clutching his forehead, the other braced against the ground. The others stood around him with identical expressions of worry, at a loss. Not that Jack could've heard them anyway. Pitch was roaring, ranting with a violence reserved for a bloodbath. In over thirty minutes Jack heard threats, pleas, bargains, demands at what was going on, and promises of disastrous retribution. The shrieks subsided when Pitch grew at last. Jack had the mental picture of the Boogeyman slumping against the iron bars of a cage, worn out from his captors. The lull was enough for Jack to come to his senses and hear what the others were saying.

North was first to attempt wrapping his head around it. "So . . . when you say Pitch 'inside,' you mean . . ."

"Yeah," Jack said, dazed. He must've been still out cold from the lightening strike. Yes, that was it. This was nothing but an intensely vivid nightmare. The young Guardian wanted to believe this with all of his heart, but he could feelPitch. It was an alien presence, a coldness, like standing in a damp cellar. The Boogeyman's essence felt old like the ancient tombs below the Great Pyramids. Larger than any physical concept, larger than Jack, he pressed against the bone confines of the young Guardian's skull. Suddenly it made sense why it felt like a bowling ball was stuffed between his ears. There was curiously no pain, just a disconcerting pressure.

"He's talking in my head," Jack said. "He's shut up long enough for me to hear you guys."

Everyone exchanged a look. Sandy scratched his chin.

"I will end you all for this," Pitch seethed.

Jack groaned. "This can't be happening to me."

"Can't be happening to you? Can't be happening to you! You're not the one non-corporal!" Pitch snarled. His voice rose in an indignant shriek."You have something to complain about? I'm the one stuck inside your head. You little—"

"Hey!" Jack snapped. "This isn't fun-time for me either. This is disturbing for me too, so why don't you take your poor victim act and shove it up your—" He broke off, noticing how everyone was staring at him as if he'd grown a second head. Which, ironically, was the case.

"No offense mate, but you know how crazy y'look?" Bunnymund said. "Crazier than normal, I mean."

"Yeah? Well, I feel crazy. I have the Boogeyman in my head," Jack replied. This was shaping up to be a horrible day, and the morning wasn't even half over. Crickets were beginning to chirp in the rising heat. The sky above was paling, turning golden with the sunrise. "Please tell me you guys have heard about this before."

"No," North said, wide-eyed. "Never!"
Jack flashed a tight Of course you haven't smile. He grimaced and directed the question at his passenger. "You?"

Pitch's silent fuming was answer enough.

The only good thing about the whole situation was the headache was gone. Aside from the weird pressure between his ears and eyes, he could pretend everything was normal.

"It's far from normal, you lackwit," Pitch said. He sounded like he was cradling his own head between his hands."How can any of this be normal?"

Jack's stomach dropped again as his worst fears were confirmed. This was beyond great. Utterly wonderful. He wanted to die. "Wait. You can hear my thoughts? No, not you, Bunny. I'm talking to Pitch."

Bunnymund's expression was appropriate for one visiting a nuthouse. Tooth and Sandy shared a heavy look. Tooth's mini fairies chuttered quietly amongst themselves, throwing Jack worried glances. North stroked his beard, tapping one of his swords on a shoulder. Jack could almost hear the wheels turning in the burly Guardian's head, chugging like a runaway train.

"Of course I can," Pitch replied, voice a wasp's sting. "Never had I heard anything so insane in my entire existence. 'Normal.' You utter child."

"Oh, well, glad you've at least heard something."

Pitch coiled on himself like a snake about to strike, puffing up.

"Just because we don't know answer now doesn't mean we can't find one," North said quickly, reading Jack's despair.

Tooth clapped her hands. "Of course! Maybe we just need to recreate the situation."

Jack shot her a narrow look. "Hold on, Tooth. You're saying I need to get hit by lightening? Again?"

"The both of you do," North said with a little ah-HA! "At same time. That is only explanation."

"Leave it to a bunch of half-wits to explain a complex transcorporal phenomenon with ridiculous simplicity."

Again, the others passed a look of sympathy around at Jack's clear inward annoyance.

"Pitch has something to add?" North asked drily.

"Could you tell?" Jack said, pinching the bridge of his nose and squinting. "He's just Mr. Sunshine right now."

"Ha! Now that'd be something to see, eh?"

"Don't stir him up," the young Guardian said. Ever since waking in the field, Pitch wasn't the only one on edge. Jack felt trapped, his every thought and gesture scrutinized and ridiculed. He sensed the Boogeyman's presence in his mind like a malignant cancer, always there, waiting, watching. He felt dirty. What he wouldn't give to scrub himself clean.

"I demand to see my body."

"Alright, alright. Sheesh, hold your horses," Jack groused, but did what he was bid, if only to shut the Nightmare King up. He could feel Pitch calculating everything, cold and alert. The control felt even more dangerous than the previous rage, and as Jack walked to where the body lay in the grass, he understood it unwise to provoke the Boogeyman further. He had almost destroyed the Guardians a year ago. What could he do to Jack now inside him?

I have a bomb strapped to my head, Jack thought before remembering his passenger could hear every word. Luckily, Pitch was too preoccupied to notice. He was quiet as the young Guardian stood over his body. Unlike the his friends, whose moods were easy to interpret, Pitch was something else. Alien emotions flitted past Jack, too shrouded and complex to pick out. It was like trying to comprehend how the colour black smelled. Jack had no language for it.

"You done?"

A flush of embarrassment shot through the immortal teenager. "Oh. Sorry."

"Quit while you're ahead, Frost. You can't even begin to understand me."

The others gathered around. Sandy nudged a black shoulder with a little foot, unaware of the hatred Pitch shot him.

North mmmm'd loudly. "Okay. Where we put him? The Pole?"

"Don't touch it."

Jack gave a little disbelieving laugh. "C'mon, Pitch, be reasonable. We have to move you somewhere."

"Don't let them touch my body," Pitch said.

Jack was in hell. He'd died and was in hell. "Pitch—"

"—manhandling with their dirty paws—"

"We can't just lea—"

"—slobbering idiots—"

"Pitch, wait. Stop—"

"—probably destroy it first chance they get—"

"PITCH!" Jack roared. For a blissful second there was silence. The young Guardian hurried to say, "If we're both going to endure this, we need to work together."

"Seriously, mate. Creepy."

"I can't help it!" Jack said, rounding on Bunnymund. "What am I supposed to do?"

"I dunno. D'you have to talk out loud? Answer him in your head," the giant rabbit replied.

"How do I know this isn't one of your ploys to get rid of me?" Pitch asked. He sounded like he was pacing up and down Jack's skull. Which was impossible. He didn't have a physical body to pace, and yet it was clear Pitch was somehow moving around.

"I'm in—" Jack stopped, took a breath, and tried again. I'm in the same boat as you, Pitch. Why would they sacrifice me just to get to you?

"Maybe it's because you're expendable to them."

"Would you—" Jack gritted his teeth. He lifted a finger to the others in the universal 'One minute, please' and turned around for some privacy. Would you stop that?

"I would love to, believe me," Pitch said. He was pacing again, spinning on a metaphorical heel. "It's not my fault you think in circles."

Well, stop it. I don't need your commentary every time I think.

"Oh, you're making the rules now?"

My body, my rules, Jack thought-said.

"Or what, Jack?" Pitch said. The razored emphasis could cut steel."What will you do to silence me?"

Let's just try to get though this without making this worse, Jack thought-said. Or there won't be a body for you to transfer into.

There was a gratifying moment of scandalized shock. Then: "You wouldn't."

I don't think you're in much of a position to be making any threats, Pitch. If I were you, I'd shut up and behave yourself, Jack thought-said. Look in my mind. Know I'm not kidding.

Pitch did, and not gently. The young Guardian could feel the dark spirit upending his mind like someone rifling through file cabinets with a pickax. Jack squinted against the prickling discomfort and concentrated on his darker fantasies, the ones fueled whenever Jamie was in danger. Pitch apparently found them because the searching went still. For a long moment Pitch was unmoving. Then the claws retreated, and silence returned. Jack let out a sigh of relief and turned back to the others.

"How is passenger?" North asked, nodding to the question mark that had popped like bubbles over Sandy's head.

"Quiet," Jack said easily. "We've come to an agreement."

Bunnymund chuffed. "Oh-hoh? I'd like to see that."

"I'm sure you would," Jack said, a smile that was too sharp to be entirely friendly on his face. "Why don't you get hit by lightening next time?"

"Mmmmm, ehhh, I think I'll pass," Bunnymund said, picking at some nonexistent paint specks on a boomerang. "'Crazy' is a fetching look on you, mate."

"Yes, yes, yes, yes. Very good," North said, moving to clasp both Jack and Bunnymund around their shoulders. Jack ducked under Naughty's heavy weight, feeling too confined already. Bunnymund looked like he wanted to do the same, face sour, but North tightened his grip, disabling flight. "But that doesn't answer big question. What we do with body?"

"'What we do with body.' You realize how wrong that sounds, right?" the giant rabbit said, giving the other a squinty side-eye, leaning to escape North's embrace.

"I think we should just keep it here til the next lightening storm," Tooth said.

"Can't we just travel to find lightening?" Jack asked. "I hear it's going crazy in Indiana."

"No. If we're going to replicate the conditions exactly, we need to do it here," she said. "It's the only way to eliminate all the variables."

"Jamie went on about how it's supposed to be nice for the week straight," the immortal teenager said, groaning. "What am I gonna do?"

"Just hold on," she said, flying close to rest a small hand on his shoulder again. Unlike North's massive slab of an arm, the delicate weight of her touch sent soothing waves through him. Her warmth permeated through the layers of his hoodie. "We'll fix this, we promise."

"We'll speak to Man in Moon. Maybe he'll have answers," North said, crowding in, dragging Bunnymund with him.

A ripple of distaste coursed through Jack, though he was unsure whether it came from Pitch or himself. Though he was a Guardian now and the happiest he'd been in living memory, there was no love lost between him and the Moon. As far as he was concerned, the Moon was never there for him when he needed him most. No reason for that suddenly change. If Pitch was aware of Jack's internal thoughts, he made no mention of it.

"So, what does the jerk have to say about this?" Tooth asked.

"Oh, he's totally fine with it. Can't stop saying enough nice things about you guys."

A collective wince ran though them. Sandy pulled a sympathetic face.

"Buck up, Snowflake. In a week's time you'll be normal. Normal crazy."

"Yeah. I'd better," Jack grumbled under his breath, but tried to make a show of nonchalance. The last thing he wanted was to appear weak and whiny in front of his friends, and though the situation wasn't a good one, Jack figured it could've been much, much worse.

After all, he could've ended in Pitch's head instead.

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North lifted the unresisting body in a fireman's carry, puffing a little under its weight. It was disturbing to see the usually animate figure utterly unresponsive despite the jostling it received. After another brief caucus, it was decided to move the body away from the open to some nearby rock caves. Jack led the way, swishing his staff in the long grass. Jamie had shown the young Guardian miniature caverns at the forest's edge during one of their adventures several weeks ago. They were the result of misfitting granite boulders laying atop each other, the holes they provided large enough for children and lean teenagers to slip in without much difficulty. Adults would've found climbing in a squeeze, hence the reason Jack and Sandy were the ones who pulled the Boogeyman in.

In contrast to the restrictive opening, the cavern's chamber was large enough to admit Pitch, Sandy, and Jack with minimal cramping. Jack had to remain slightly bent while Sandy moved around without hassle. They deposited the body on the damp, chilled ground. Jack winced on the Nightmare King's benefit when Sandy accidentally dropped Pitch's head on a rock. Pitch himself said nothing. He remained an unapproachable presence in Jack's head, quietly cataloguing the wrongs done to him.

When he and Sandy emerged from the tiny cave, it was Tooth who said,

"Jack, we think it's best you should stay behind."

Jack stared at her, aghast. "What? No way!"

"We still don't know the effects being away from the body might do to Pitch. We don't even know the effects having Pitch in your head will do to you. We don't know anything, really. Gosh, I know we're being really unhelpful. We'll will come by every day to check up on you." She finished with the words he couldn't resist, even if he'd tried. "Trust us, Jack."

The young Guardian folded like a house of cards, defenseless against the gentle warfare. The few protests he lobbed were hollow, and they knew it. Trust us. Let his friends help him. They would take care of him. He was family now, remember? Trust us.

A few more goodbyes later, they moved off in their separate ways, Bunnymund leaping down his tunnel and Sandy on his airplane. Tooth and North took a little longer, promising to come back tonight. North gave Jack a snow globe to use for an emergency "It will take you directly to Pole. Just throw and poof! walk through," before leaving themselves via North's sleigh. Jack watched them leave, trying to hide the despondent looks he threw at them.

Then, like that, Jack was alone. Great. Just great, he thought.

Pitch maintained his mulish silence, but that was a carrion comfort.

…

TBC