Chapter Forty-nine- Temporarily Indefinite

Shortly after they had eaten the pair of connected and very sick Guardians had fallen asleep again. While the others sorted through books for ways to break the connection Sandy was at work himself.

"Jack?" Sandy called out, relieved that the dreamscape was at least populated this time. Those blank ones were creepy, and he was glad to be rid of them. Looking around he wasn't finding anything helpful, not even markers at to where he might be. This didn't look like any forest he had ever been in.

"HolycrapSandy! Are you actually talking?!" Jack poked his head out from one of the trees.

"Not really, you're hearing me as if I was the voice in your head, you know the one you hear when you read." He offered, chuckling at Jack's reaction.

"That's still cool." Jack insisted.

"It is, but that's dreaming for you." Sandy shrugged. "I figured if we got ourselves into this here, then this is where we need to be to get ourselves out of it."

"Sounds about right, any ideas?" Jack asked, perching on top of his staff.

"Not really. All I can think of is trying to brainstorm about the moment the connection happened."

"Well…I just fell asleep and here I was." Jack shrugged. "Don't remember much else."

Sandy sent a hand over and through his coarse hair which had resumed its spiked up appearance in the dreamscape. He didn't know what he looked like in the real world, nor did he care to.

"Um…Sandy?" Jack sounded concerned.

"What?" He asked, not looking up.

"I think something's wrong."

"That's not very specifi-" Sandy stopped in his tracks when he looked up and saw what had Jack concerned.

Darkness. It was a deep, all-encompassing darkness and it was engulfing the land in front of them. Sandy jumped about a proverbial foot and grabbed Jack's arm, hard.

"Ow!" Jack leapt up from where he had ended up leaning into North.

"What? What is wrong? Are you alright?" North fretted, dropping the book he had been skimming through and his notepad.

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine. Sandy just…Sandy?" Jack's eyes were suddenly wide as he saw Sandy still sleeping beside him. "Sandy? Sandy wake up, come on." He lightly shook the elder spirit's shoulder and nothing happened.

"What's wrong, Frostbite? Talk to us." Bunny prompted as calmly as he could.

"We were in a shared dream. There was this…I-I don't know…it was dark, like a giant shadow. It ate up the dream around us. Sandy just pinched me and woke me up. He looked scared. Not…not worried. Scared." Jack all but panted, he wasn't taking his eyes off the golden man either.

"Jack, breathe." North coaxed quietly. "Just breathe, look. We will fix this. Please, try to breathe." North asked calmly, soothingly. He was a slight tone of voice shift away from sounding demanding or demeaning. Normally those types of things would set Jack off. North knew, he had become quite familiar with Jack's various triggers. He got the boy to look at him and talked him down.

Tooth and Bunny were behind him trying to wake Sandy up to no avail.

"Jackie? Sweetie are you feeling a little warm?" Jessica asked sweetly, feeling his head. Jack nodded, no longer trusting his voice.

"What's going on?" James mumbled, looking mostly sleepy and less sick.

"Sandy's not waking up, there was dark magic in a shared dream of theirs." Tooth offered without bothering with specifics.

"Dark magic? What did it look like?" He asked, knowing someone should have a description.

"A big dark shadowy mass thing. It was eating up the dream." Jack offered, trying to retain his forced calmness. James looked a little stunned but managed to keep from looking as terrified as he was.

"The magic, there must be some leftover magic in him." James said a bit louder but mostly to himself. He got up, ignoring the worried and downright flooring stares of both Jessica and Tooth, admittedly mostly Tooth.

"James, you're still-"

"I can help." He clipped out, not wanting to hear it. He basically had some self-inflicted sinus pressure and a cough. Sandy could die. They backed up.

"Sandy, you're not allowed to die, I thought we discussed this." James sighed, putting his hands to the smaller man's temples. "Be ready." He warned them before he entered the dreamscape.

"James?!" Sandy called out, dreamscape quickly fading no matter how hard he tried to hold the darkness at bay.

"Yeah, I'm here! Hold on!" He called, wading through the sticky substance. It made his skin crawl, he couldn't imagine how Sandy felt.

"What are you doing?!" He asked, borderline panting.

"I'm gonna kick its ass!" James assured loudly. Sandy couldn't help his laughter.

As soon as James found him he shoved the little golden man behind him and started swinging a big black axe at the encroaching blackness. Fire with fire. It felt like he was slicing through something thick and gooey, like frozen peanut butter.

'Why on earth am I thinking about peanut butter?' He asked himself.

"I'm going to draw it out, hang on." He offered quickly, looking back to Sandy who nodded his understanding with a worried frown on his face. It was out of place and James didn't much like it. He would have to fix that.

He drew a sharp breath in the physical world and pulled his hands back sharply, drawing darkness with them.

"Kill it!" He yelled fiercely and angrily. This spirit wouldn't harm anyone ever again. He would destroy it. Banish it from existence.

Bunny and Tooth dove at the entity and Jessica opened the window on a hunch. When the light from the arctic landscape flooded the small room the darkness shrieked and shriveled up until Tooth and Bunny squashed it right out of the world.

"Everyone okay?" Jessica asked. There was a lot of nodding with Sandy looking around in shock. He had jumped about a foot when James had pulled the magic out of him and now he was sitting there looking stunned.

"Well come on, it's about time for lunch." Bunny prompted, breaking the stunned silence and even earning a few chuckles.

"Well, you all can keep reading and we can-" Jessica started, following Bunny out the door to the kitchen before she was stopped by Tooth.

"No you don't. I'll take care of it." Tooth offered, motioning for both of them to sit.

"Yes, you've been doing a lot of this lately, relax." James agreed, standing and stretching. Tooth eyed him but he ignored the sensation of her eyes burning holes in his head. He needed to move. He followed her out as Bunny curled up around Jessica and almost knocked out instantly. All the reading was giving him a headache. The last thing Tooth saw was Jessica encouraging him to rest his head on top of hers.

She had to admit, there was a faint pang of longing when she saw that. Something inside her yearned for that and it made her smile.

"What are you doing?" Tooth asked, rounding on James. "You're-"

"Fine. I'm fine, Tooth. Please, relax. Using my own magic nipped the last of it in the bud. I'm perfectly healthy." He argued as genuinely politely as he could.

"But you still sound like you're holding your breath." She observed, crossing her arms in challenge.

"I just had the worst cold I've ever had in centuries, of course I still sound like crap." He defended. "Cup of tea and I'll be fine." He assured her. She was obviously not sold. He chuckled.

"You worry too much." He shook his head at the look of shock she sent his way.

"I don't worry too much! I worry just enough." She insisted, looking insulted but something told him he would know for certain if she really was angry. He got brief flashes of Pitch's memories and quite frankly this didn't come close.

"Oh really? I got a cold and you were acting like I was dying." He threw his hands up.

"Spirits don't get colds." She replied flatly, coming to a complete stop in front of him.

"What do you mean? I'm pretty sure I just had one."

"No. You were sick off an opposing magic, and yes. That could have killed you. Easily." She didn't look like she was messing around.

"But…there's no way…" He didn't know what to think. He could've died?

"James? Didn't you know that?" She asked. Her face softened when she realized he hadn't actually known how bad off he had been. She had assumed he was just being stubborn, which was true, but that he had also known.

He shook his head slowly, still processing how close he had come to death.

"Hey, come on let's get you that tea and find some lunch." Tooth urged, pulling him along a bit before he started to follow her. When they got there they found Phil was actually way ahead of them.

"Here, we'll help you out." James offered, not wanting to think about what he had just learned.

The kitchen was huge, but they were all cooking in the same corner. James was admittedly pretty good at it, too. Although, he was mostly cooking with Jack and Jamie in mind. He had done his fair share of cooking for a picky child before, and then Jamie. He knew what the boys liked as surely as Jessica probably did at this point.

"You taught yourself to cook?" Tooth asked, not bothering to hide how impressed she was. Crepes? That was fancy. She was curious enough that she wasn't even concerned about the sugar-content.

"No, my mother taught me." He shrugged.

"Awww, that's sweet and…really uncommon." She realized. He sighed.

"I know, but I was the only child she'd be able to have, and my parents were particularly open-minded." He explained. Tooth just stood there smiling sweetly for a moment. Long enough that James caught her doing it and waved a hand in front of her face.

"Tooth? You still in there?" He asked through a suppressed chuckle.

"Oh…oh yes, let's get the herd fed." She chirped. James just shook his head. What was that feeling in the pit of his stomach? Probably just nausea. When they opened the door they sounded…he didn't know. It was a combination of relieved and…sad?

"Lunch is served, how's the research going?" Tooth asked cheerfully, obviously not picking up on the mood of the room, or more likely ignoring it.

"We…we found a way." Bunny offered, looking at the ground. Jack and Sandy didn't look happy about whatever they had found, in fact they looked borderline devastated.

"What is it? What's wrong?" James asked quietly.

"They would have to…stay very, very far away from one another. It would block connection." North explained.

"For how long?" He asked, Tooth was just watching, unable to make herself speak.

"…indefinitely." North managed to spit out. "At least…until we find true cure." He offered optimistically. However no amount of sparkles and glitter will make scat into a cupcake. The revelation weighed heavily on the room.

"Well, the children need their dreams. There's no denying that." James huffed, breaking the silence. Sandy nodded slowly.

"So, how far?" Jack asked reluctantly. The sound of it was a physical blow to North who hugged him a little tighter.

"His home should do." North answered him, and no one stepped on him.

"I'll take him home." James offered. Sandy looked like he was going to argue but James quickly added that one sharp tap on the side and he was down for the count. He couldn't argue with that so off they went. They knew when he was far enough because the edges of North's shirt and the blankets around the two started to cool and be decorated by the swirling patterns of frost.

Rather than shiver or pull back North's grip adjusted until a very worn-out Jack was asleep on his shoulder again.

I promise, we will fix this. I won't let you down again, son.

Okay there we go! Sorry this is taking so much longer recently, but I've been swamped and I'm also working on another one-shot for the collection I have. It's a long one too. As always let me know what you think, and don't worry I have not abandoned the shipping harbor. As always love and romance tends to take a backseat during a crisis. Until next time! :)