Alaia Skyhawk: Me thinks this chapter is going to knock your socks off. Get ready for the ride, because it's going to be a rollercoaster :)
Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians, the Guardians of Childhood, or any related characters etc. This story is written purely for entertainment purposes.
Chapter 130: From Past to Present
Jack put a brave face on for the rest of the visit, bolstered by Kristoff's promise 'not to tell the girls' about his depressed state. With the new King's discrete support, and a request from him to entertain Prince Nicholas and Princess Christina, Jack was sufficiently able to distract himself and them in order to set aside for now his jumble of memories. It also helped that Katherine snagged him for three afternoons, to help her make copies of numerous stories she'd come across in the books of fables and folklore in the castle library. Even with a bit of Santoff Claussen wizardry, she'd realised she'd be hard pressed to copy everything she wanted before it was time to return to Earth.
All-in-all it kept him busy, until the day before their departure. The point where Queen Anna no less than literally shoved him out the castle doors with the instruction to find her sister and bring her back for the farewell party.
Jack didn't argue, not when it was better to see her being bossy than to see her gazing up at the sky watching for Elsa.
He flew off and went north, following the directions he gleaned from the winds, and found Elsa on a wide plateau high above the height of the snowline.
Jack halted a short distance from her and that which she was building, unable to help but marvel at the glittering and ornate structures she was working on. The plateau was inaccessible by ground travel, and was so deep among the surrounding harsh mountain terrain that 'isolated' was a mild way to describe it.
It seemed she'd chosen where she wanted her Sanctuary of Winter, and had started constructing it. A glittering complex of buildings set atop a field of snow.
He headed over and landed a few feet from her, causing her to twitch in surprise.
She then smiled and gestured around at what she'd made.
"Hello, Jack. So, what do you think?"
He smiled in return.
"Very nice, and I'm sure it'll only get better." He inclined his head southwards. "Tsarina Anser and the rest of us are leaving tomorrow. Queen Anna 'requested' that I bring you back for the farewell party, in that she bodily shoved me out the front door of the castle."
Elsa looked startled.
"It's been two weeks already?"
It took all Jack's control not to show a reaction to that. 'Losing' two weeks was nothing, she'd learn before long that two months would slip by her just as easily once she'd settled into being an immortal. Her interpretation of time would change day-by-day, until months passed seemingly like days, years passed like months, and decades like years.
Would she suffer the same conflict of feelings that he'd endured, when she realised how fast the time would pass her by? As Anna and Kristoff grew old, and their children too grew up and went on to have children of their own.
He forced on an amused grin, hiding behind mischief.
"They do say time flies when you're having fun, and by the looks of all you've built already, you've been having fun."
Elsa laughed at that.
"I guess I have." She rose up into the air, her flight much smoother now after two weeks of practice. "Let's get going then, shall we? It wouldn't do for us to be late for the party."
She darted southwards, leaving him to laugh as well and catch up. They arrived at the castle to a bustle almost as bad as the one for the ceremony two weeks previously. Elsa was almost immediately snagged by her niece and nephew, who pleaded to be told about where she'd been during her time away. Olaf and Gustav also showed up and started asking for the same thing, meaning she spent the afternoon ensconced in a corner of the gardens with her avid audience.
For Jack, the sight once again roused memories of him doing the same thing for Emily, and he retreated to the castle library to help Katherine finish packing up the books of story-copies she'd made. He ended the day with an abundance of exuberance at the party, reducing the small gathering of Elsa's family and friends to fits of giggles by the time he was done.
It seemed barely any time at all before it was dawn and time to go, with himself, Katherine, and Tsarina Anser stood upon the castle dock with the shuttle ready and waiting.
He approached Elsa one last time, and shook her hand. Speaking quietly for only her to hear.
"Remember, no matter how hard it gets, letting go doesn't mean forgetting. Be a part of your family's life, if that's what your heart wants, but do be prepared for what will come. Nothing can prevent it, so all you can do is accept it and move on."
She nodded in understanding, her smile slightly saddened.
"I'll remember, and thank you for your advice. I still have some problems to work through, but I know I'll overcome them."
Jack now glanced over to Anna, Kristoff, and their children.
"Thanks for having me to visit. Make sure you're always there for Elsa, ok?"
Anna's expression was determined, the stubborn glint in her eye the mirror of Emily's so long ago.
"We won't do anything less for my sister."
Kristoff put his arm around her shoulders, as he too glanced at Jack with a knowing look in his eyes.
"We'll be there for her."
Jack waved one final time and then turned to enter the shuttle. Pausing only to make a couple of jokes to a member of the crew before climbing into his capsule and closing the lid. He was asleep well before Katherine stopped by to check if he was settled, so he didn't see the tiny frown of concern she directed at him. Indeed he was aware of nothing between the moment he fell asleep and to the moment a seeming heartbeat later when strident pounding on the lid of the capsule woke him.
Within seconds of the lid being lifted and him sitting up, he was smothered in a hug full of brightly coloured feathers.
"Jack! You're back!"
Jack began to extricate himself from that hold.
"Hi, Tooth." He kept tugging at her arm around his neck, not making much progress. "Sheesh, let a guy breathe! I've not been gone that long!"
Tooth immediately let go and at least had the grace to look embarrassed. Behind her North, Sandy, and Bunny were all wearing varied expressions of amusement.
It was the Russian who gave Jack a helping hand out of the travel capsule and onto the deck of the main dome in the Moon Clipper.
"How was visit? Is new Spirit of Winter all settled?"
Jack grinned.
"Elsa's well on her way to being a first class Spirit of Winter." He looked around. "So, did I miss anything while I was away?"
Bunny shrugged.
"Nope, it's been boring as anything. Although there is the welcome back party that's been planned at Santoff Claussen."
Jack's grin widened.
"Starting at noon their time, right?" Bunny nodded. "What time is it there now?"
Tooth answered that one.
"Ten past one in the morning."
Jack laughed and quickly conjured an ice mirror.
"Then I've got time to reacquaint myself with the local weather patterns before it starts. Meet you at Santoff in eleven hours!"
He heard them laugh at his trademark playful 'escape', his smile remaining in place until he'd dismissed the mirror and was alone in the open air of the far upper reaches of the Earth's atmosphere. Only then did he take a shuddering breath to steady himself, even as the winds swirled around him in glee at his return and concern at the emotional state they could sense he was in.
He pulled them close, murmuring quietly.
"Let's keep this just between us, ok? I just need time to think. There's no point in anyone else worrying about me."
They agreed, reluctantly, before he roused them into a more playful mood by telling them to take him wherever they wanted to welcome him back.
He must have circled the globe three times over by the time they were finished. A quick check revealing there was enough remaining before the party for him to stop by his Hall of Mirrors and send out a frostdust distribution... With a liberal extra dose for the Santoff area just to add more kick to the party atmosphere.
Everyone was there. Jamie, Sophie, all his Senior Lieutenant, the Guardians, Nightlight, Ombric and the rest of the Santoff residents. Even Tsar Lunar was there, although Tsarina Anser hadn't been able to stay. Her ship had continued on to her next destination as soon as Katherine and Jack had been dropped off on the Moon Clipper.
None of them saw what Jack's over-the-top exuberance was hiding. His feelings had nothing to do with hate, even self-hate, and had nothing to do with fear, leaving no trace for Sophie or Kosmotis to sense. Added to the fact Jack was a master of hiding his feelings behind fun, and he left them no reason to suspect he wasn't quite himself. That his visit to Yensidia had been a wonderful trip for him, instead of a visit that had unexpectedly raked his heart out over a bed of coals.
Jack slipped away from the party only once most of the other guests had already left. Even then he only did so by heaving a sigh about 'duty calls'.
He spent the next three days on the winds, other than the usual stops by the Hall of Mirrors for frostdust duties. Making checks ready for the upcoming Northern Autumn/Winter Transition, before finally returning once more to the Winter Sanctuary.
The Winter Sprites mobbed him immediately, drawing genuine laughter from him during the half-an-hour it took him to get free of them. But once he'd reached his personal wing inside his ice palace, he entered a room he'd not gone into for a long while.
He had more than one Hall of Memories now, after long-since filling the first one. The second one, in the adjacent room, was barely a quarter filled with sculptures of various things since the immortals had become public knowledge. He'd not been in the first one for three decades, and even then when he'd entered it had been to walk straight to the back to create new sculptures on the plinths there.
It had been a long time since he'd stopped to look at the many sculptures of his sister, her husband, and her son. He'd passed them by so many times without even a glance.
He closed the door behind him once he entered, knowing the unspoken rule about not disturbing him here would keep anyone from following him. The first sculpture he went to was the first he'd ever made, of Emily holding her newborn son. He then moved among others. Sculptures of when she was a child that he'd added from memory to bulk out the initial collection he'd had of her with her family. He wandered among them as though wandering through time, the pang of separation aching inside him until he dropped to the floor in tears and sat there sobbing.
Why did it have to be so hard all of a sudden? Why did all the pains and pressures of the centuries have to weigh on him now? Pitch was gone, the Earth was part of the Allegiance, and the Golden Age had been reborn. Everything was what he'd dreamed would come to be...
...Except that Emily would never see it with him.
When he exited the First Hall of Memories, there was no trace of his tears remaining. Instead he wore an expression of amiable cheer, one so perfect only those closest to him might be able to tell it didn't quite hide the shadows in his eyes. He threw himself back into his world, spreading laugher and cheer just as he spread the winter weather when Northern Winter began.
Through the Festival of First Snow, and Christmas after that, to the world around him everything seemed normal. In public there was nothing to reveal the truth, but in private he spent more and more time lingering in his Hall of Memories or brooding alone in his room. He thought his façade was perfect, had fooled himself as he'd fooled almost everyone else, but he hadn't fooled his Senior Lieutenants.
It was in March, just after Jack's three-hundred and fifty-ninth birthday, that they finally gathered in the privacy of the main chamber of the Senior Lieutenants' Residence. All of their eyes, human and animal, haunted by concern for their friend.
Yuki sat huddled in one chair, arms wrapped around her knees as she bit on her lower lip in worry. Zuě Hu's tail lashed in agitation, Cernunnos paced back and forth trying not to snag his massive antlers on the drapes that decorated the walls, and Dig sat in the middle of the floor looking bereft because he'd been unable to get a true smile out of jack with his antics since his return. Kiyiya was sat whittling bits off a stick with his knife, seeming more intent on demolishing the length of wood than making anything from it, and Marzanna had a hand clamped on the arm of her chair tightly enough that her nails threatened to tear through the upholstery.
She released her grip after a few minutes, an unsteady edge to her voice.
"Something is serious wrong with Jack. Ever since he came back from Yensidia it's like..."
She hesitated, and Cernunnos finished for her.
"He's lost sight of his centre. Something on that world set off his memories, and he's been locked up in them since."
Yuki's voice was quiet, and her words as tentative as they had been back when she'd first become a Lieutenant.
"His smiles and laughter are forced, and he keeps hiding behind jokes to change the subject whenever things might lead to asking about his feelings."
Zuě Hu growled unhappily.
"His frostdust is doing its job, but it lacks its usual gleam. Has anyone spoken to Kosmotis or Sanderson? They might have noticed the difference."
All of them shook their heads, none had spoken to the two immortals. It was now that Kiyiya cursed under his breath before rising to his feet.
"Well we all know that trying to 'mother' Jack through this is pointless, and knowing him as we do, mentioning this to the Guardians is a bad idea. Sanderson, yes, the rest of them, no. They'd only drive him deeper into whatever is bothering him. It would be like trying to do surgery with a sledgehammer, only in North's case it would literally be done with a sledge."
Dig glanced up at him.
"What about Sophie? Could she help?"
Marzanna shook her head.
"No, Jack's issue is clearly something from his past with the Bennetts. Bringing in one of the current living descendants would probably compound the problem."
Cernunnos sighed.
"Which means involving Jamie is out-of-the-question as well. We should speak to Kosmotis."
Zuě Hu snorted.
"Except he deals with Fear, and if that was Jack's problem Kosmotis would have been and seen him long before now. It's been months. What could Kosmotis do that we can't?"
Marzanna also rose to her feet now.
"Then there's only one thing we have left we can do. We have to tell Mother Nature."
That caused all of them to startle, Yuki exclaiming aloud.
"What? We can't!"
Marzanna gave her a stern look.
"Jack's the Spirit of Winter, with the power to devastate this world if he slips in his control and makes a mistake, and right now he's emotionally compromised. As Lieutenants of Winter, it's our duty to make sure our Season is taken care of at times when Jack isn't capable of doing that himself. Throwing himself into his work, trying to blank it out, isn't going to help him."
When Yuki huddled deeper in her chair, flinching back, Marzanna sighed and continued with a tone of apology. "The last time Jack had a serious problem, that grudge again Bunnymund, it took Sandy to literally beat it out of him and make him see sense. I doubt that'll work this time. We really don't have a choice."
Silence fell, remaining until one-by-one they each resigned themselves to the necessity. Fifteen minutes and a message-carrying wisp of wind later, a vine gate appeared inside the residence.
Mother Nature was waiting in her gazebo when they passed through it to the Garden of the Seasons. Her expression solemn as they explained the situation to her. She kept their visit brief, only as long as was needed to learn all they could tell her, before she sent them away with the assurance she would look into the matter.
Only once they were gone, did she let her expression of calm slip into one of deepest worry. Jack was mentally strong, probably the strongest immortal in that sense after all he'd had to go through. And yet now, had he really gone through all that without some kind of emotional damage? Something just waiting for the right trigger to make him break? Had he found that trigger on Yensidia?
"Father Time, could you spare a moment to speak with me?"
Her request was spoken to an empty garden, but she knew he would hear it. Any question directed at him, he would always hear.
He appeared beside her before the last whisper of her words had faded to silence, his aged eyes shadowed.
"You wish to speak of Jack."
Mother Nature regarded him, concern making her expression hard.
"What happened on Yensidia? And don't say you weren't watching. You always watch whenever Jack is somewhere doing something special. What happened to him there?"
The accusation in her tone held a brittle edge of worry, enough that Father Time did something she'd never seen him do... Sit down in the presence of another, his shoulders seeming to droop beneath the weight of his many many years of life.
"He met a new Spirit of Winter, one who has a younger sister and a fierce determination to remain a part of that sister's life. He saw the mirror of himself, his own past, in her. All immortals put the past behind them, for good reason. They remember things fondly, with dimming clarity as years go by, and by nature of their lives there remains no chance they will encounter another exactly like themselves on their own world. There is a saying about time; that should the distant past and present of a person ever meet, their future may shatter forever."
Mother Nature gripped the arms of her chair.
"Are you saying Jack has been shattered in that way?"
Father Time's voice was grim.
"Jack would never have met another Spirit of Winter here, much less one with such similarities to himself. It is as if he has met his own past self, and now he is reliving all the pain, regrets, and loneliness of that past. He's been buried beneath them, so much so that he can no longer look forward into his own future, and I know of no person in this era who could lift him free of those memories."
Father Time bowed his head in defeat before her eyes, and yet she now reached out to him with a chance.
"Perhaps not in this era, but there is someone in the past who could help him." She gripped his sleeve, pleading. "I know there are rules, I know you can't risk paradox, but if there's anything at all you can do." Mother Nature's eyes gazed into his as she begged him. "After all he's been put through, after all that's been asked of him, we owe him more than can ever be repaid. If there's any possibility at all... This could destroy him, and I don't want to lose him. Not the dearest friend I've had since I first came to this world."
Father Time returned her gaze, seeing the tears that flowed down her face at the thought of losing Jack. His ancient mind searching through his memories for anything, any event he'd seen, that would indicate he'd done something from this time to enable this request. And yet despite finding nothing, not a single trace, he did recall one thing that gave a fragment of hope. A fragment of possibility.
He rose to his feet, having made his decision. Taking her hands in his.
"Yes, I think I can bend the rules in this case."
~(-)~
The annual Guardian Meeting had droned through it's usual list of topics, with the usual background noise of toy-making and of elves getting themselves into mischief. Jamie and Sophie were both sat in attendance, as had become normal since Earth had joined the Allegiance, allowing them to be brought up-do-date without involving reams and reams of reports. Indeed things were just winding to a close, with Jack about to make his escape via his usual window, when a vine gate appeared in front of the controls for the Globe of Belief.
Mother Nature and Father Time came through it, standing there with the smallest of smiles on their faces.
Jamie was the one to rise from his seat first, confused by their presence.
"Mother Nature, Father Time, is something the matter?"
Mother Nature shook her head, unable to hold back the smile of joy as she spoke.
"No, everything is fine, more than fine." She glanced at the former Tsar beside her. "We're just here to bring to you, someone who has travelled a very long way. Almost three-hundred years, in fact." She now turned to Jack. "You deserve this reunion, Jack, and so does she for helping to make you who you are."
The two of them stepped to the sides as a third figure came through the gate between them. The new immortals' face that of a young woman where once she'd been old, her brown hair graced with a fine net of snowflakes, and her blue dress edged with frost.
She smiled when she set her gaze on Jack. Holding out a hand to him, her eyes glistened with happy tears.
"I guess I'm seeing that bright future with you after all."
Jack took a single step forward, barely believing what he saw, and then an instant later he was at her side and they were hugging each other. Siblings who had been separated by death, reunited here and now.
"Emily!"
She held on tightly to him, laughing with joy.
"I'm back, Big Brother, and I'll never leave you ever again."
Jack didn't ask how it was possible, he didn't need to. For who else could have gone back through time to lift her from her grave, and bring her to the future? Before it was too late to revive her as an immortal. She who had already slipped from history's flow, to influence it only with her memory.
Jack looked over the top of Emily's head, to where Father Time and Mother Nature stood watching this reunion. The Spirit of Winter silently mouthing the words he was too choked up with tears to say aloud.
'Thank you.'
Everything had come full circle, here with the sister who he had given his mortal life to protect. The one who had, in her way, helped set him on the path to become what he was. And with her at his side, he knew the future was going to be perfect.
In this era where it was no longer needed, for there to be secrets kept by Frost and Moon.
~(-)~
THE END
~(-)~
Alaia Skyhawk: *cries happy tears* I've been waiting for this chapter, and that reunion, for a very long time. Now before you start screaming and flailing that this story is over, if you go check out the ROTG section, you will find a new story called "Moments of Frost & Moon". It's a collection fic, to contain oneshots and mini-arcs of moments and sub-stories from before, during, and after the time-line of this. It's for all those little things I couldn't put into here, and it will also be for requested scenes from you guys.
So safe to say, I'm now accepting requests for that fic. I'll also see about resuming Dreamer and Shadows, now that this one is completed. So I suppose that last thing I have to say is this.
I almost managed to reach 500k words on this story with this chapter, so perhaps you guys could see this fic reach 3k reviews? Pretty please? It's not far away from that number, and for it to reach that would be awesome. So if you've enjoyed this story, please leave your feedback on this, the final chapter.
It's been an epic ride, and now it's time for the next one :)
(EDIT: Figured I'd mention this. If you want to see more Immortal!Emily, go over to Moments of Frost and Moon. The opening arc covers her reunion with Jack, and the before and after for it)