Chapter fifty-six- The Fic That Never Ends

Jamie and Jack were sitting in unusual silence in the living room. Tooth had made dinner and Jessica was sitting with them eating slowly.

"Why don't we ever go see Sandy?" Jack asked. "Well…I know why I don't for a second, but…"

"Well, Sandy's home is a bit hard to find." Tooth explained.

"But we could!" Jamie agreed. He was perking up, thank Moon for conversations.

"Well maybe when we've got this taken care of we can ask him if he'd want to have dinner there some night." Jessica proposed. She was looking behind her in anticipation of a certain Pooka. He'd stayed behind to take care of a dye-spill in the warren, and they needed his good-natured grumpiness. Well, I do.

After another stretching silence filled with metallic clicking on plates that could make Jamie's skin crawl he couldn't take the silence anymore.

"Hey, why don't we-"

"Jack?" North poked his head in looking for them. Jack flipped over the couch to look at the toymaker upside down.

"Hm?"

"We think we've figured it out…"

"You need me back there?" He asked. North nodded and shifted ever so slightly. Where was his trademark wide-eyed grin? "Somethin' wrong?" He asked.

"No, everything is fine." Jack flipped over the couch to follow him, confident he'd learn eventually.

"Okay." He drew the word out and when he entered his office it was a mess. It looked like he'd played snowball baseball in there. James looked like he could drink his body weight in mocha flavored coffee made from North's strongest coffee and the syrup he made cocoa with.

"Jack, good. We're gonna connect you and Sandy in a dream and hope that Sandy can disconnect the bond." James supplied, sipping a steaming cup of something that smelled like mint.

"Come on. What's wrong? He had turned to North who was, thankfully, sitting down. At least he wasn't looking almost straight up at him. Crossed arms, staff leaning by the door, he wormed his way into the Russian's head until he snapped like a candy cane.

"We don't know what might happen…"

"Happen when?"

"In the dream." James supplied.

"It'll be a dream. Just a dream, right?"

No one spoke.

"RIGHT?!" He was getting dangerously close to scared.

"Jack," North was scooting forward in his chair, and that tone was usually followed by a lengthy and generally scary explanation. He'd seen parents do this for ages. It was never good.

"Oh no, not that look." They couldn't tell if he was joking or not.

"Jack, we need to put both of you in dream realm." He started. "You…it has to effect this world."

Jack was looking at him sideways through his lashes, North's gut was knotting up because of it. That look could tear him in half every time.

"It's just the whole Pitch reforming thing that has us nervous, that's all. We don't wanna risk it, but we have to. We're just a little concerned." James added.

"This doesn't look like nervous."

"Well, there's a lot at stake. We don't like even the slight chance that you and Sandy might be in trouble, that's more than enough to put us on edge." James explained.

"Let us be nervous." North tried.

Jack nodded. "Okay."

Sandy was already meditating into the proper realm, which was as close to sleeping as he liked to be, and therefore what he described as sleep so the others would stop panicking about his lack of said sleep. When Jack entered that world James poured his magic onto Jack, connecting them even more solidly to it.

Back in the warren, Bunny was convinced that there was something in his home. Something about as irritating as a half-dozen stink bugs. Unwelcome, but not very dangerous. He'd already cleaned up about a dozen spilled paint cans, twenty dye flowers had been cut and there was a thick, inky substance covering a few of his stone guardians, who were all in a panic.

Running his paws over his ears he called it a draw and made for the pole to see what was going on. Jessica would have already come back to get him if his help was desperately needed, but he should at least check. Or she can't come get you, because it's that urgent.

"Come on, brain. Work with me here." He groaned on his way out the tunnel. When he finally popped out at the pole there was a hush. Yeti were laid out, faces in paint, toys everywhere, elves sprawled out on the floor. As he picked up a good jogging pace his mind went absolutely nuts with the possible causes.

In the end he found James in North's office reading a book while everyone else slept soundly.

"What happened?!"

"…Accidental dream bomb?"

"How the bloody hell did you manage that?"

"I have no idea." He turned the page of the old book carefully. "They'll be alright."

"Why did ya try to…what are you…" He was leaning against the door frame examining the carnage that had been done to the poor workshop.

"We're breaking the bond, but I may have accidentally put out too much magic. Jack was supposed to be the one it hit, not North." He looked up at Bunny again when he didn't answer for a second and saw him looking around in stunned silence. "What?"

"How do you not know?"

"Know what?"

"Look outside." He motioned behind him to the rest of the pole. "I'll watch 'em."

He almost snotted himself, he was crying and laughing and at some point he started hiccupping. Tooth, Jessi, and Jamie were all cuddled up in a heap on one of the couches snoring.

Thanks for reading, and I'm once again really sorry for my absence. Here's a little transitional bit, the next chapter should be a bit bigger, and hopefully this new plotbunny comes hopping through without tripping. You are all wonderful people! :)