Chapter Forty-five- Chaos
"I'll take Jamie and try to gather the Burgess kids and let James keep doing what he's doing." Jessica offered.
"Alright, stop by Tooth palace on the way?" Bunny asked, tossing her a backpack of globes that had been nearby.
"Good idea, come get us when everything is ready?" North asked. Jessica nodded.
"Of course, let us know if something…changes." She wasn't going to say it.
"We will." Bunny assured, pulling her in for a little hug and nose-bump before they left.
"Eeeew, PDA." Jamie teased before making his way straight out the door without waiting which put the three conscious adults into a fit of giggles.
"He'll get use to it." Bunny assured before letting go.
"I'll go chase him down." She zipped off to find her boy.
Sandy opened his eyes about then to see Jack snuggled up to North. He noted how awful the boy looked, dark circles under his eyes, paler than usual, shaking, sweaty. Do I look like that? He asked himself. He took stock of how well things were working.
He felt the glow of the medicine making him loopy, the belief flooding him from James' work making the healing process creep along, and the chill of Jack's link. He still felt ill, and his very bones seemed to ache from the strain they had been under, and he still couldn't move for the life of him, but he didn't feel like he was about to die.
He remembered that feeling and this was nowhere close.
You okay, Jack? He asked to reassure both of them. Jack grinned at him, which was reassurance enough. Bunny settled a bunch of temperature-preserving blankets around North and Jack to provide as much comfort for the two as possible. These were blankets they had that would magically maintain the natural body temperature desired e.g. North's body temperature. North carefully wrapped the boy up in a hug, gently rubbing his back soothingly.
The end result was a mildly uncomfortable sweat in Jack, and a chill in Sandy, but nothing fatal by any means.
Sorry about this, Jack. I shouldn't have tried to do that. Sandy apologized, and it even managed to sound tired to the dream-maker himself. With a herculean effort he managed to contain the scowl that was his disgust at himself. He was more sturdy than this!
"No, don't…don't think like that." Jack muttered sleepily, not really moving from where he had burrowed himself.
"What is it, mate?" Bunny asked, North's shoulder having obscured Bunny's hearing.
"They're just talking." North assured and Sandy smiled his thank-you.
I sought you out, you wouldn't feel like this if I hadn't tried to connect. He insisted.
"And you'd be near dead." Jack pointed out, suddenly having the energy to pry his eyes open and his head up a little. "It's okay." He smiled weakly. Sandy still looked like he felt bad. Then he wretched.
Sandy's stomach declared it would take no more of this and revolted against him. Bunny quickly held him up and he narrowly made the trash-can, but that produced a similar reaction in Jack which North took care of.
So there they were, the duo barfing and the pained helpers who could really do little to nothing. The pain of movement and illness compounded between the two of them left both spirits in tears. Rather than put Sandy back down Bunny wrapped him in a similar hug, sitting down with him.
North and Bunny locked eyes and both were looking like they could cry with the pair.
"Relax, mates. Big breaths, well not you Sandy, but definitely Jack." Bunny accidently teased. Sandy and Jack both chuckled and the laughter had a calming effect that both could feel releasing tension.
"There we go." North muttered as he slowed the rocking motion he had started without really thinking about it. He was trying to get Jack to calm down and sleep, which was working. Interestingly enough it had a similar effect…on Sandy. Without any of the actual motion Sandy reaped the benefits of the calming gestures North was doing for Jack and fell into a peaceful sleep.
Luckily Jessica and Jamie were having a much better time. They stopped off at the roof to let James in on what was happening and he went with them to India. Tooth and James actually joined them on their mission to round up Jamie's friends but in much different ways. James was sending out dreams and checking on the hopefully still trapped essence and possessed mortals while Tooth and Jamie were knocking on windows with Jessica right behind them.
"At least this is good flight practice!" Jamie pointed out when he nearly ran into a power line. Tooth had snagged him and pulled him up and out of harm's way just in time.
"It only works if you don't hurt yourself!" Tooth teased, shoving a little as they flew through the town.
"Thanks." Jessica whispered when Jamie zipped away to a house he knew well. "I can't always keep up with him, and he is still my baby." She grinned.
"Oh I know." Tooth agreed. "We've all got your back there." She assured before zipping off with Jamie, laughing as she went. Her mind finally settled on what they were doing and a smile widened on her face.
"Wait up!" She called, doing her best to catch up. It was like a cripple who was just told they could walk, clumsy but optimistic and joyful.
Back at the lake James found that what had been a cavern was now a hole, and a frozen one at that. Just as they had left it.
"Mani what do I do?" he whispered desperately. "They're going to make the connection and Moon help me…" He shook his head. "What if they think it's a trick, a trap?" He asked, looking up at the silver sphere in desperation, working himself into a panic. Images of children as they had been toward him for ages, angry or worse…terrified. The thought twisted his stomach and chest uncomfortably.
The moon said nothing. That did not mean, of course, that he was not listening, but his attention was regrettably elsewhere. He felt his son's fear, his pain and desperation, but he trusted him to take care of it. Rather than interfere he was watching and waiting. He wanted to help, but had learned over millennia to only do so in the most dire of situations. This would only end badly if he put his influence in. They could handle this, he believed in them.
James set to pacing as he spread the dreams, his own job piggybacking on Sandy's. He was so tempted to let it go for a while, let it fall to the wayside, but he knew he couldn't do that. There was a reason he was a Guardian, and he would do that job if it killed him. Tonight, it just might.
He stopped on the side of a tree that would block him from view when the others came, and rested briefly. After a few shaky breaths he gritted his teeth and shook his head, stretching as he did so and focusing on being calm and looking composed. You can do it. He told himself. You can get through this, you can handle this magic. You can. You're fine. You are NOT going to hurl, you are not sore. No. He told himself over and over. Just keep moving.
That was his mantra. Just keep moving, keep on moving, move, move, move, one foot after another, keep going no matter what.
"James?" Crap, that was Jessica's voice. He could hear voices talking, sounding concerned that he almost recognized. It was the burgess kids. He had never properly met them, but some of those voices were unforgettable.
"Um, Jamie? Are you sure it's okay that we're out here?" A familiarly nasal voice asked.
"'Course, you'll be fine, we promise." Jamie assured the boy. James steeled himself, he wasn't ready but he made himself move anyway.
"Over here, Jessica." He called back, sending out more dream sand so at least the first look they got of him would be a positive one.
"Is…is that…?" The smaller girl stopped, throwing her arms out to stop the other kids. Jamie, Jessica and Tooth looked back to them and to James tensely.
"Hello." He greeted. "I'm James, but I don't think that's how you remember me." He offered. Smooth, real smooth. James mentally booted himself.
"PITCH?!" One of the two twins called out. James tried not to cringe visibly so much. From the pitying look Tooth gave him he was guessing he failed at least partially.
"Kids, listen. This isn't Pitch, not anymore. You've all heard of the boogey man?" Tooth asked. There was a lot of nodding. "Well, Pitch wasn't really the boogey man, he was separate from him, but he had possessed him a long time ago to use his magic. That's how he was able to change Sandy's magic all that time ago." She explained.
"But…what's his magic?" The other twin asked.
"He's the first Guardian, which means in some shape or form he can use all our magic, but he was chosen specifically as courage." Jessica explained.
"So he does still make nightmares." The bigger girl summed up skeptically.
"Not entirely, he-" Jamie started.
"Yes." James couldn't take it anymore, he needed to step up. "But not only nightmares. I combine elements of good and bad dreams to help people heal from traumas like phobias and deaths. I was originally the only spirit of dreams." He explained as gently as he could. There was a moment of silence when his heart dropped, but before he could get too worried the smaller girl stepped up.
"Well Jamie trusts you, so…we do too." She offered. James tried not to huff in relief, but he would have been lying if he said he couldn't have done a backflip.
"Alright then, kids this is James Frost." She offered with a grin, "a great great something to Jack." She explained.
"What? That's so COOL! Why didn't you mention that before?!" The one with the glasses asked excitedly.
"Well we didn't think you'd be interested yet." Jamie offered. "Anyway James, this is Monty, Cupcake, Pippa, Claude and Caleb." Jamie introduced and they gave little waves and hellos as they were called. "Now, as much as I wanna talk and catch up we have something important to do, so we can talk later." Jamie expertly shut down all the questions he could see bubbling at the surface. Everything from why is your hair white to what happened why did you die? He knew they didn't have time for that yet.
James and Jessica were grinning ear-to-ear when Tooth turned to them.
"Okay, what do we need to do?" Claude asked with a determined look on his face.
"Well, we need to convert some magic back to Sandy's sand." Jamie offered.
"Why? What happened?" Pippa asked, the kids looked extremely worried.
"He was hurt, but he's okay." Tooth stepped up to handle this one. "He just needs his magic to be a little stronger so he can heal, that's all."
"Where's the other magic?" Cupcake asked, clearly confused. They snapped into action, Tooth went to positioning them where they needed to be while Jamie and James explained what was happening and Jessica used her magic to scope out the cavern to make sure they could get back in there.
"Make sure that when the mortals come out you remember that they aren't going to hurt you, we just need to draw the magic out of them." James assured. "Now we were going to have Jack freezing and thawing the entrance, but he's with Sandy, so Jamie's on that one."
Jamie nodded, looking more than a bit intimidated. He stood ready beside his mom, who was actually still hovering mid-air. James was waiting a little way away ready to pull magic in and convert it, or pull it out as fast as possible so that the kids could help him convert it.
Tooth fluttered in the air in front of the kids, ready to fight for them if needed. Everyone there was fully prepared to defend the kids.
"Ready?" Jessica asked. One at a time they nodded their approval and she used her magic to open the cavern while Jamie thawed it. Immediately about twenty large and angry spiraling tendrils of black magical mud-like sand shot out at them. Jamie very quickly froze the entrance and his mom took the cue to seal it up.
It was chaos.
Alright, I promise this is going somewhere! Let me know if anything is confusing or something makes no sense and I'll do my best to fix it/clarify.