Sorry this was late guys! The weather is really crazy up here in Toronto and I got bad a cold yesterday haha.
I don't know how you guys can read such a long, winding thing and come out alive but it means the world to know that my love for this AU is really reflecting on screen and with you guys. (: I'll always keep writing, but it's very sweet to know you're trying to keep up with me haha. I also have no ill feelings if you're pissed at me for spamming your inbox with chapter updates (haha then again, you signed that death wish when you decided to click 'follow' lol). Haha but thanx so much everybody! (anons/flwrs/fvrs/ppl I've grown to know so well :3 I think I'm up to date on all my replies; if not I'm so sorry!) Please read in moderation so you don't hurt yourself haha. I write lots but everything is relevant and plays a part in the future. (:
"What would it take, for things to be quiet, quiet like the snow?"
New York, Buffalo Niagara International Airport, 10:59 am
The minute Jack and Toothiana got off the plane, skipped past security and entered the airport terminal, they were dressed to impress and ready to hit the road.
Tooth felt better after her long sleep and Jack (who hadn't slept since the flight to Russia but could still go on another day without it) was back to his skin-perfect, ass-kicking self. But when she moved in to grip Jack's arm–
"H...Holy crap."
He looked down at her questionably.
Her wide eyes (accented by her new pink eyeshadow) drank up the room like she'd landed on a new planet.
He quirked an eyebrow.
"What's wrong with you? You look like you'd never seen this kind of thing before."
But she didn't answer, still feeling jetlagged and darting her eyes around like two pink, nervous birds as she stared at everyone wrapped up in their holiday fever. She watched a mom and her sister scream in the distance and run to hug each other, and spotted a man (pushing a mountain of Christmas presents on a trolley) get bumped by someone and watched them fall over. As several people tried to help him, she moved on to a group of college boys singing stupidly together while they waited for their flights to arrive, then quickly spotted an old, Indian couple scurry over to their son and daughter-in-law as they arrived from their flight with the Emirates. Seeing the father lean out to hug his granddaughter made Tooth gulp.
"I..." she started but took a deep breath and tried again. A small smile peeked on her lips. "It's just sorta weird to be here two weeks earlier than I normally would be...I usually come back in January so I've never seen the airport like this!"
Jack eyed her funny.
"You've never seen the airport at Christmas?"
She shook her head.
"Why?" he asked taken aback and Tooth caught herself watching three triplet girls play tag around their family in another spot. Jack watched her smack her lips delicately.
She shot him a look before she tilted her head and smiled bashfully.
"I'm usually back on Punjam when this all happens so I've never spent one Christmas here in the States."
She then turned her eyes back to the masses and her gaze grew large and crestfallen. Jack turned his head back to the crowd too and was about to open his mouth when she sighed, more firmly this time, and huffed with a brave smile.
"Well, there's a first time for everything right?"
And she moved away from him to pull into a stretch. "So let's get this show on the r–"
"Ooooh!"
Toothiana stopped stretching her arms above her head.
When she looked down, she found where the tiny voice was coming from. A little girl with curly, brown hair peeking out from under her red toque was staring up at the princess with such expressively, large eyes.
"Oh, hello there," Princess Thia smiled and the girl instantly brandished a mouth with missing teeth and brave face. Jack thought she was the cutest thing as she started to bounce on her feet but he stood behind Tooth and tilted his head.
"Pretty!" she squeaked, pointing at the princess' hummingbird-feathered necklace and as the older girl bent down to her level, the six-year-old opened a tiny Christmas bag she was carrying and pulled out a small embroidered handkerchief.
"Merry merry Christmas, miss!" she said sweet and proud as she handed Tooth the cloth. A second later, she waved and skipped off around the airport terminal to give more random people gifts before Toothiana could raise her hand and talk to her.
"Thank–...yousweetiemerrychristmastoo," she mumbling off the last words. With a sad blink at the girl vanishing back to her family, Tooth looked down at the red square and rubbed a thumb over it.
Jack leaned over slightly. He eyed the cloth, the girl, and the feather hairtie in Tooth's high ponytail.
"Why do kids keep leaving you with gifts? You got some kind of pact with them or something?"
When she pulled up, she chuckled and shot him a secret smile that seemed to erase the last of the night's horrors from her features.
"M-Maybe..."
But despite Jack's blank look, he inwardly exhaled a breath big enough to fill a hot air balloon. Her smile still survived. It was still there, and after everything she went through hours ago...she'd never know how grateful he was to see it, regardless of how timid it still was.
The little girl reminded Toothiana so much of Tiati with her big eyes and confidence to meet people and she looked down at the handkerchief more fondly.
Tooth gazed at the holly design on it one more time before she squeezed it tenderly in her right glove. She'd found it the back on the ELF plane (a female ELF must have left one of the pairs behind) and Tooth decided it was warm and stylish.
Jack saw her smile grow and he decided it'd be too much for one moment and turned back to survey the airport's Christmas crowd.
"So...you're okay, then?"
Tooth shoved the cloth in her coat pocket and she sighed under her breath.
"Oh yeah don't worry 'bout me. I'm good," she said trying to sound cool (but failing) and looked back at him encouragingly. "I'm perfectly fine! But I wouldn't mind buying another pack of g–"
THWACK!
"Ah!"
Jack's eyes widened.
Tooth slapped her hand to her eyebrow, wondering what the heck just happened.
"Ow...ow...owowow!"
"Oh my gosh, lady! I am SO sor–"
"Tommy! I told you not to hold your snowboard like that!" the thirteen-year-old's mother screeched from Tooth's right. "Now apologize! And give me that or put it on the cart!"
"I AM apologizing, ma!" he argued exasperatedly and looked back at Tooth. When she patted her forehead and he got a good look at her magenta-colored eyes, he paused briefly and gawked.
"A-Again, sorry miss!" he blubbered and blushed under her pretty gaze. Tooth lowered her hand after the worst was over and smiled.
"Aw, it's okay," she forgave him and widened her gaze. "T-That's a really cool snowboard!"
"Y-Yeah?!" he said eagerly and shifted it on his shoulders. "I custom picked it myself! I can't WAIT to ride it up in Whistler!" And when he flit his gaze to Jack, he shot the brunette a lively smile. "Sorry, I'm holding your girlfriend up huh?"
And Jack actually chuckled and bent down a bit. He smiled widely and pointed at it.
"Just avoid The Couloir, alright? That hill almost knocked me out one time."
"Y-You ride too?!"
"Heck yeah," Jack grinned. "Nothing's better than a rush of wind to the face. Just remember to stay centered and keep your knees loose, okay?"
And the boy grinned, really laidback and sociable for his age. "You got that right! Although mom hates when I come in all red and runnynosed!"
"Well that's what you've got a sleeve for," Jack smirked.
"Exactly!"
"Okay ew," Tooth teased and they both looked at her before the kid laughed.
"TOMMY WE'RE LEAVING!"
"Okay fiiiiine!" he yelled and turned – but not before he stopped to lower the snowboard so he wouldn't knock Tooth out again. He then smiled back at them.
"Take care of yourself, kid," Jack shot him a warm smile and he returned it.
"Merry Christmas, you two," he piped and moved away after Tooth waved.
When he was gone, she leaned over, still smiling, but she looked slightly disturbed underneath it.
"You ride?"
And Tooth saw him nod out of the corner of her eye while he continued to smile at Tommy. Jack suddenly wished he could just drop everything and go snowboarding in Whistler too.
"And I'm your girlfriend now too, huh?" she teased.
"Only if I suddenly suffered a severe brain injury."
And she bumped violently with her hip as a small grin spread on her face.
"Shut up."
Jack scowled but it didn't reach his eyes.
He was almost pleased to hear her sassy tone. Keyword: Almost.
They watched Tommy move back to his very loud family and a wave of nostalgia fell over them both. Tooth also recognized the little girl that gave her the handkerchief reappear and join them – she must have been his little sister (which also explained a lot).
Tooth sighed under breath.
"Okay," she gulped as she watched with an aching heart all the other families around them. "What do we do first?"
But Jack didn't answer right away.
When she looked up at him, a frown appeared on his face. He was spacing out in a so-not-Jack way. Tooth immediately scrunched her eyebrows.
Moving in close to him, she whispered so only he could hear.
"Hey," she nudged him and he blinked twice. He looked down at her like he'd just woken up.
"What?"
"Did you just have another memory flash?" she asked softly but Jack shook his head.
"Is the crowd too much?"
"No, I just..." he stopped to rub his eye tiredly and Tooth caught something in his expression. She frowned sadly.
"Jack, is it okay if I...I mean I understand if you don't want to, I just..." when she stopped to try again, he bit his lip and looked back at the crowd.
"You're asking if I had a life before all this...?"
Tooth shut her mouth. She rubbed her arm and looked out at the crowd again too.
"Y-Yeah."
Jack watched a father scoop up his little girl and swing her around. His forehead creased darkly.
"If I did...it's gone now."
Tooth flit her dark-pink irises his way.
"Don't say it like that," she mumbled.
"But it's true," Jack retorted and ran a hand through his brown locks. "All I ever see are flashes of my days as an operative. Not my past before it."
"Not even a family member?" she wondered. "Or a name? A-A face?"
"..."
Tooth frowned until Jack spoke up again. He tightened his hold on his backpack.
"Hopefully I'll know something by tonight," he promised. "Once we get there."
Tooth's grip on the teal-colored fabric fell away and she looked at the crowd one more time before she nodded firmly. As much as she wanted to find answers to her own questions, she just as badly wanted to find them for him.
And right now, his mattered more.
"So let's go," she said seriously and Jack narrowed his eyes as he looked up at the signs.
"Not yet," he said and they continued to avoid getting spotted under the cameras. "Let's do something first."
...
Second floor, 10:41 am
They found an emergency bank teller on the upper floor in a more private corner of the departure lobby. The spy and the princess sat in two chairs across from the man (who was generally happy to be off after today for the holiday) and when he asked Jack for his password, the brunette felt Tooth place her hand on his knee under the counter for support.
She saw the way his muscles tensed more than normal. That's when she realized that up until today, Jack didn't have a cent to his name and basically assumed he'd been a criminal all his life.
But man smiled a second later when Jack's password ELECTRONCALPHA was cleared through and his funds appeared under his 'name', Adrian Bennett. Toothiana held her breath for him – she didn't know what it was like to not have money being a princess and all (well, she could understand now since she and Jack basically acted like fugitives for the past couple days) but she knew how nerve-wracking it was.
"Alright sir!" the teller grinned. He had a hint of playful jealousy in his eye. "Here is your current amount."
The second he turned the screen around to show them, Jack's mouth fell open.
"Y-You're serious? That's the current?" he gaped and almost couldn't believe it.
"Of course, it's all up to date from the past deposits of your workplace," the man replied warmly and Jack and Toothiana watched as the teller put a fist to his cheek and grinned cheekily.
"What do you work in?" he laughed. "Haha because your half my age, but your salary's quadruple what I make!"
Tooth covered her mouth to hide her happy grin.
"Oh my gosh, Jack," she laughed softly as he looked at her like a deer still caught in headlights.
"This is mine?" he breathed to himself. A second later a breathless, relieved smile came to his face. "This is mine."
"See? You're fine," Tooth whispered happily. She moved up her hand to his arm and rubbed it encouragingly. "You're gonna be fine."
At least something was going well again.
Toothiana couldn't be happier for Jack. Now he knew that before the company wiped his memory, he was actually working in a steady career with a valid government payroll. He would definitely have to thank North again after this and with that thought, whatever resentment Toothiana still had for the 'Santa Claus' started to trickle further away. He was really true to his word when he said he'd helped them out, weapons, clothes, and cars included.
But something kept gnawing at the back of Jack's head and he leaned forward again with squinting eyes onto the screen.
"Could you tell me how far back my company's deposits went?" Jack asked. He absentmindedly put his hand over Tooth's as they both waited while the teller pulled up the history.
"Of course sir, I'll print it out for you."
Jack needed to know. He needed to know when he started working as a federal agent, as a covert operative, as a spy to Project GUARDIAN.
After the teller adjusted his glasses and he read out his search.
"Mm, your record shows that these deposits go back 5 years. Although your monthly deposits to another account stopped about three years ago. Is that correct, sir?"
"Uh..."
Tooth felt Jack's hand tense over hers and she looked at him expectantly.
"Is it?" she mumbled under her breath. She really wanted him to piece together parts of his mangled past and hoped that this new bit of information would help him in his recovery.
It took a while before Jack blinked suddenly and his smile diffused Tooth and the older man's curiosity.
"Yes, I remember now," he chuckled and lied through his teeth. "It's all correct. I just had a, uh, a bit of a Christmas burnout right there."
The teller laughed in agreement but Toothiana frowned when he wasn't looking.
She felt Jack's hand grip her fingers, twitching on their own accord under the table.
After a bit more light conversation around their cockamamie plan to spend Christmas with Jack's family in Manhattan and the teller's fear of fruit cake, Jack changed his password and withdrew a solid amount from his account (which didn't even make a scratch on his fund). He and Toothiana wished the teller a Merry Christmas and left in a flutter but the second they rounded the corner, Tooth poked him in the arm and he quirked an eyebrow.
"What?"
"What do you mean 'what'?" She frowned."Your hand turned into a bear trap back there after he mentioned the company deposits."
Tooth bit her lip. "So is it true? You've been doing this for...for five years?"
Jack kept his eyes glued to the ground, still avoiding overhead cameras, and flexed his fingers. He kicked his combat boot against the airport floor.
"It must be true," he mumbled and shoved his hands into his pants pockets. "I don't remember ever doing anything else. I still can't."
Tooth pursed her lips.
"And woah, you've been with the same company this whole time? And now you're what, 23 and they've been giving you a salary since then?"
"Actually I'm 24," he corrected and Tooth paused for a moment. She smiled a little to herself.
'Aw, he's only three years older than me,' she squealed inwardly. She also squealed at the realization that he had told her more bits about himself and didn't treat it as a 'swear-not-to-share-or-you-die' sort of thing.
"But now what I want to know is," he continued (obviously not sensing her change in happiness), "What was the other account I kept depositing money into? And why'd I stop doing it three years ago?"
"Well, why didn't you just ask him?" she asked out loud but Jack snapped his fingers.
"A rule in discretion, Tooth; when it comes to personal information, ask as little questions as possible."
The princess stared up at him for the longest time, soaking it in, but when it started to feel creepy after a few seconds Jack scrunched his dark eyebrows together.
"What?"
Tooth blinked and looked away. A pleasant blush came to her face.
"Nothing," she shrugged. "I just like hearing you call me 'Tooth'."
He rolled his eyes.
"You really shouldn't. People will think you're weird."
Next thing he knew, she smacked his arm.
"I'm not weird," Tooth corrected and closed her eyes, lifting her chin. "I'm special."
And she missed how Jack glanced at her quickly.
He lifted his eyebrows.
"I know," he said and he fondly touched the wad of cash deep in his trenchcoat as they continued to avoid getting spotted under the cameras.
And when they reached the store area, he stopped for a second at the convenience store and used his own money for the first time – buying another pack of spearmint gum.
...
Main BNI airport lobby, 11:23 am
By the time they both got back to the airport exiting hall (and Jack had exchanged his EU for American dollars again), another ten thousand people had filled the area. Even the second floor looking over them was jam-packed and Jack rubbed his head anxiously as his dry eyes swiveled the crowd.
"Come on, we need to catch a cab."
Tooth went into It's-Go-Time mode and tried to help Jack search the lobby in her miniature size but she wasn't much help with her height.
"I can't see anything! Can you?" she cried while Jack kept glaring through the masses. When he caught the taxi symbol way the distance, he pointed.
"Yeah, it's over there!"
"Well let's go! The sooner we get to that company and demand answers the better!"
Jack bit the inside of his cheek not bothering to hide his face after a while. There were just too many people in the airport at one time so he realized would never get ID'd properly. Jack wrapped his arm around Tooth's shoulders and used their combined size to boulder through people and she puffed her cheeks agitatedly.
"Do you–sorry, sir! Excuse me!–Do you remember where it is?"
"Not really, but we'll start–pardon me, excuse –" He sighed. "We'll start at the place where they left me in a ditch and we'll work backwards from there."
Her eyes popped out and he paused with an impatient look.
"What now?"
"So that was true?! Th-They...what you told me...they just left you?"
"I told you. I wasn't lying."
Tooth gulped. She still remembered the look on Jack's face the first time her told her that, back when they were in Vietnam. She lashed out at him for sounding like a cheesy spy plot but he'd told her anyway, gazing up at the stars and lost with questions she hadn't yet known would affect her too – it was amazing how much had changed not only between their lives, but between them.
"Tooth, the company shutdown, remember?" he said loudly.
She looked up at him while they got squeezed together.
"What?" she squeaked as the space got tight and her face was pressed right up against his chest. Not that she minded – she'd decided he was one of the best cry pillows she'd ever needed.
"The company," he repeated. "It shutdown just before they left me for dead. I know from the memory, I told you this!"
"But if it's closed down then why are we going there? There'll be nothing to see and no one to meet!"
"You trust me?" Jack asked her just as they popped out from the family squeezing the life out of them. He gasped lightly and Tooth heaved in a deep breath of oxygen.
"You know I do, Jack," she said and he looked at her briefly. He felt his chest flush and his heart had a tiny battle with itself unsure if it should be happy or regretful.
He pushed it down and decided just to nod.
"Good. And I'm trusting North. And he told me to go back to the place where it all began."
"But why there?" she asked and the two of them had to weave through another tight crowd.
"Because–hey, watch it!–Argh, because North said all the agents from the Guardian program were defragmented."
"De...De-what?"
"Yeah," he huffed as they both burst from the second crowd. There was suddenly more room around them and Jack filled his lungs with cold air before he reworded it.
"Memory wiped."
"Then what not just say that?"
"No, I'm just telling you because that's what North told me. And so he said to go back there and...well, I don't know what'll happen, but I get the feeling once I'm standing in the same spot again, the broken one's will start to align themselves."
Tooth paused in her walk and Jack reached a hand to grab her arm – not at all like how he used to grip her and drag her everywhere, but gentle and courteous of her senses.
"Toothiana, what's up?" he asked and furrowed his eyebrows.
She frowned up at him.
"You never went back there...did you?"
His grip tightened slightly.
"I didn't want to," he muttered thinking hard about the way he felt when he'd first woken up alone, freezing, and on the brink of desperation. He sighed.
"But can you really blame me for that?"
Tooth blinked...she shook her head before she looked down between them.
"No, I can't," she mumbled. "I don't ever want to go back to that hotel."
And she meant it – even though the ELF had told them when they landed that Prime Minister Bangkot's body had been removed from the hotel and flown back to Punjam, she couldn't think about it...letting the emotion fall over her and settle cold like snow and sorrow.
Tooth tried to pick herself up and rubbed an eye delicately.
"W-Well," she started and looked up at him with a tiny smile. "Y-You got me."
And he nodded as he moved his arm away from her and tightened his hold on his backpack.
"And you got me."
"Exactly," and she threw him a beautiful, undeserved smile. "So between the two of us, getting there won't be a problem. And maybe, some new one's will come back and fill in the blanks. Yeah?"
"Yeah, that too," he said breathlessly and Tooth's smile still stuck to her face as they began to peddle quicker to across the lobby. "So the quicker we get to the area, the quicker we can get back to finding Pitch and your handmaidens."
He stared down at her – to think he almost lost that hopeful light in her eyes hours ago. When she caught him checking out her irises she blinked.
"What?"
He paused and rubbed his eye.
"Nothing. Just glad you're...not..."
When he faded off and felt awkward for even saying that end bit, her smile widened and she looped her arm through his. After she moved her necklace into her turtleneck, she nudged her head.
"Don't get all soft me, Bennett," she tried to lightly joke with his fake name and he blew out a breath in relief, giving her a small smile and a determined look as they left the crowd of people.
Jack slung his small backpack off his shoulder to open it and rummage through his dark clothes.
"Okay let's get a taxi and head out of northeast. And...maybe we'll stop and pickup some emergency toothbrushes so w–"
Two loud pops went off.
No one reacted to it in the Christmas fever at first, thinking it was a firecracker but then–
BANG!
And everyone in the airport unfroze for a millisecond and realized.
It was a gunshot.
The last of three.
The echo of the rifle echoing across the airport finally sent all the people into a frenzy.
Screams rang out like banshees and families grabbed their things and their loved ones running in dizzying circles away from each other.
They wondered where it came from, who shot them, and where the shots were! But two went off course and avoided getting anyone so the violent shoving and crying, and an alarm system immediately blared across the area.
But Jack didn't feel any of it.
Time suddenly slowed down and it felt like someone had just hit him in the back of his shoulder with a sledgehammer.
"H...A..."
His backback fell and he dropped his arm from Tooth's.
"Adrian? J...Jack? What's wr–"
The second he stumbled and bent forward suddenly, her heart stopped.
There was blood.
And a hole in his trenchoat.
Jack's breath got caught in his throat and suddenly saw Tiati's face getting sprayed with blood and the bullet hole in Mr. Bangkot's head.
Tooth dropped her bag.
Jack gritted his teeth as a scream tried to wretch itself from his throat and Toothiana rushed in to hold him up. Her heart tried to catch up with her.
"O-OH MY GOD!" she screamed. "NO! No, no, no!"
"Kat," he gritted out between teeth. Jack's maple, brown eyes widened at her distress and tried to hold her steady. "Kat!" But she wasn't listening.
"Thia! Tooth!"
She kept putting her hands everywhere, unsure of what to do but he needed her calm. "It's-it's okay. We just need to–"
She gripped him so tightly she thought the bones in her fingers would snap.
"Y-You got hit and-and there's a bu–there's a bul–"
"Tooth!"
Jack bent a little against her as his eyes as the pain screamed across his chest and flared up around his collarbone.
He snapped his head behind him.
'Entrance wound from behind...Near-accurate shot to the heart so it's gotta be a sniper assault. But he missed.'
Jack put his good arm around her shoulder again. He tried to shield her head as he swept the crowd with cold eyes and searched each body for any signs of calm preparedness.
Immediately on the second floor, he found it.
A sharpshooter dressed in all black with a black ski mask and yellow goggles was finishing de-assembling his M40A3 before he shot Jack a quick look and pulled out a gun. Then, he was gone in a flash.
"We have to move!" Jack screamed and on heavy feet and a rapid heartbeat, he dragged himself forcefully toward the door with Tooth under him.
She shook violently as her mouth continued to hang open.
'Jack got shot...h-he got shot...he just got shot but he's been so careful and I–'
"Oh no! Oh no please, I–I..."
Cold sweat and wet eyes made it hard for her breathe.
"W-Who did it?...Wh-Who did it!?"
"It was a N'...Nightmare!" Jack wheezed and Pitch's voice suddenly leaked into his brain.
You can't hide from a Nightmare.
"S-Son of a–"
A second later a man flying with two luggage bags knocked them both in the back and they were tossed forward. Tooth almost crumpled under Jack's dying weight as he slumped forward heavily with a gasping breath.
"Jack!"
The two nearly fell on the ground if Tooth hadn't stuck out her boot and caught herself. Toothiana grabbed him against her again, almost losing it when he bit down on his tongue and clumsily tried to find his footing.
Jack moved his arm from around her and pushed his hand up to the gunshot above his heart.
"Sh-Shit!"
"Jack, w...W-What is it!?"
"The b'..." he stopped to breathe through his nose as a shot of pain blurred his eyes for a sec. "Th' bullet's still inside me."
"Wh...Wh–" Tooth stopped and looked around. "You need a hos–Where's–S-Somebody help!"
"No, I don't need a h'sptal!"
But no one around them could see (or care) that the shots fired through the crowd had been intended for him – they were too busy caring about themselves and their own families...and Jack's black trenchcoat hid the bullet wound and the growing patch of blood too well.
"Somebody, a-anybody?! Help please!"
Her scream was loud and desperate and she refused to cry or be a baby again; but the same distress started bubbling up from the place she'd tried hours ago to push down with his help.
She heaved in agony to scream again but Jack grabbed her arm.
"ANYONE! PLEASE!"
"Toothiana, no!"
But she whirled on him wanting to hold him and smack him at the same time.
"NO! I am NOT gonna lose you too!"
And Jack stopped for a second before he tried to swallow out the desperation in her tone and inside her eyes. She looked like she was seeing a million things with him and he had a terrifying guess as to where they were.
'I'm not gonna lose you...pain in my ass or not, y-you...Jack you are NOT–' And she gasped on her breath and gritted her teeth.
"You're not, I swear! It's okay," he growled under another shot of pain and his gaze started to grow less sharp.
"But what're we–What will you...J–"
"I have you, and that's enough, alright?"
Tooth shook her head a little and felt something feel like her ribs being pulled away.
She gasped to stop it.
"B-But I can't do anything!" she cried and they tried moving forward. The Nightmare might have been at nearly the other side of the airport and the crowd may be too big a sea to spot them, but Jack was still alive, which meant he'd still come after them.
"I'm not a med student or surgeon! You know that!" she choked and gasped again to stop that horrible shudder that made her ribs want to split apart. "And why haven't you passed out yet?! You should be...a-and I can't–"
"You're enough, Tooth!" he snapped back to shut her up and kept trying to focus on the crowd. "And I'm not gonna pass out! I'm built stronger than you think, remember?"
"What are y–"
She stopped.
"They trained us to control our bodily needs in extreme conditions. It's all mental willpower so I don't sweat. Or really need sleep, or get hungry..."
"C-Can you turn off pain?"
Jack looked down at her through painful eyes like she was a crazy person.
"Obviously not," he said and rolled his eyes and trudged forward. "B-But I can endure it."
'But for how long?!' she wondered fearfully and rubbed her eyes above her eyeshadow in anxiety.
"So just get me outta here," he said and she rushed down quickly to grab his backpack off the floor and carried it with her own bags. "I can remove it myself and patch it up with the things in Hue's carryon. We still got it right?"
"N-No, you tossed it back in Moscow when the Nightmares attacked us! R-Remember?!"
"Oh right, damn."
Jack turned again and saw colors blur this way and that but when he spotted a steady blur of black about thirty yards away, he panicked. Pitch's Nightmare fired two bullets in their general direction and Tooth squeezed her eyes shut.
"Aah!"
"He's coming. S-Serpentine, Tooth!" Jack cried and she looked at him for a clue. He scrunched his eyebrows hastily. "Remember back on the motorcycle? And the car?!"
And Tooth suddenly remembered how Jack weaved in and out in both, blurring their pursuers' trajectories and getting away.
She took a deep breath and started counting. "One...Two..." then quickly swerved Jack and herself into a one crowd then out another.
...
Meanwhile, Jack's assailant lowered his gun as Jack's unruly, brown hair suddenly vanished. He sped up around some people and shoved a man brutally to one side when he caught them briefly dive into the crowd on the right...then suddenly appear in between a family on the left...then between two guys diagonal to him!
He gritted his teeth behind his ski-mask and tightened his grip on his rifle.
The princess moved Jack Frost around like a damn, little hummingbird! He violently punched the wall concrete beam beside him.
They weren't gonna get the slip on him, especially when one of them was already shot.
...
Panicking BNI airport lobby, 11:49 am
"Ohh, d-don't you die on me!" Tooth huffed as she stuck her legs out farther than normal to help support his stride.
"I'm not gonna die," Jack growled and felt another shot of pain erupt across him. He hissed through his nose sharply when he felt his shoulder start to develop that cold, sticky feeling. It meant the blood was large enough to puddle together and trickle out.
"Quit being so dramatic."
"But you're–"
Tooth stopped and almost cried out when she saw his shirt through his open trenchcoat. A small, red spot was growing over where his heart was.
"Y-Y...You're bleeding!" she screamed and moved into the cover it when he pulled away.
"Argh, no Tooth! Stop!" Jack shouted and she jumped back. She put both hands over her mouth and pretended the cover was like a paper bag. She breathed in and out quickly, her heart tearing in two different directions.
'Get help...get out...get help...get out!'
Boom Boom.
"Code White, we repeat, Code White. Security to the Arrival Terminal."
"What did sh–"
Suddenly what sounded like a roll of thunder came about fifteen yards closer and Jack's grip on Tooth's shoulder turned ghostly white. When he turned his head, he saw the familiar suits of airport security and several cop uniforms trailing behind and up in the top floors.
His eyes widened.
"The cops!" he bit out. "They'll see me and Pitch's Nightm–argh!"
Jack suddenly doubled over slightly in pain and a patch of black, much bigger this time, knocked his vision out for a second.
"I need to get you to a hospital, Jack!" she cried. "B-But what if he follows us? What if he stops us?! Then what'll we do?! What'll I–"
She stopped and gasped again, harder this time and tried think about mint gum and counting again.
'I like gum...I like birds,' she started rambling off in her head and tightened her hold on Jack's bags and kept moving with him forward. 'I like watching Moulin Rouge with my roommates, and I like teaching Tulia how to bike...'
"To...Too..." Jack panted and Tooth stepped in closer to hold his arm for him when he suddenly stumbled on his feet slightly.
"No, Jack!" she said, feeling aggressively more determined. "N-No! We're almost there!"
But she was lying. The exit was still about fifty steps away and everyone was moving too fast. Jack moving slowing a little and breathe harder through his nose. His feet felt like lead and his muscles were like jelly, but his eyes squinted open to see as best he could.
"W-Where's the exit?!" Jack wheezed and his voice became slightly more breathy.
His clear, crisp voice started to slur slightly and his eyes saw another spot of black try to form. Tooth looked and saw his face beginning to wash away with color – the same kind of terror he wore when he came back from his fight with the Nightmares.
"I can see it b-but you gotta move with me okay?!"
He took a few painful steps forward and gritted his teeth again. Tooth bit her lip and gripped him like a cobra, blinking more and more each time to stay focused, to stay dry.
"W-Wh're is it? Are y'sure?!"
"Yes, Jack!" she urged and guessed he kept asking because he was starting to see a little less clearly – and that terrified her more.
"It's right over there, right over there! You just follow me like you s–"
FWUMP!
Two people knocked the tiny princess nearly off her feet and she spun violently. Jack grabbed her but the swerve made him dizzy until the two of them were facing another direction.
"Oh stop! Please!" Toothiana wailed as loudly as she could at the people but the airport was on Code White and the law enforcement and Pitch's assassin weren't helping them to stop.
When the two came to an-almost stop, Tooth blinked her pink eyes again and frantically searched around for the taxi sign.
"W-Where'd it go?!"
She twisted neck, snapped her head around but no matter what corner she turned to or sign she read, she couldn't find it again.
"T-Tooth!" Jack cried and tried to tell her to stand on her tiptoes but he stopped when he felt the blood start to move down his chest and back. He paused for a moment when the horrible feel of it began to seep deeper into his shirt and Tooth turned to look at him, just as it started to show more profoundly over his heart like a cold spread of darkness.
"No!"
Tooth held him with both arms but nearly toppled back when they both got hit again. Throwing her foot back to catch them, Jack slid forward more until his head rested on her shoulder. He shut his eyes and gritted his teeth as another shot of fire ripped through him. He hissed against her ear.
"Argh, we n'd t–"
"I-I know, I know!" she wailed and out of fear and Tooth moved her right arm up to push into his hair. "I'm looking!"
But the more she swivelled and felt stressed for time, the more Tooth's hold on him grew harder. She knuckles turned white and her breathing got shorter as she eyed everyone like a criminal. Flashes of black suddenly swarmed around them. They were all just men in business coats but Tooth eyed them like demons.
"No, no, no, no..." Toothiana squeezed her hand in his thick hair and squeezed her wet eyes shut for a second.
Jack was the one person she had left right now. He was the only one who wasn't a lie from the beginning and never lied period. He never left her behind and was always there to protect her, and now that they finally got a place where they thought they could heal, she had to consider the possibility that she'd lose him tonight like everyone else...and she couldn't bear it.
"Not again...Not again..."
The princess turned and decided to just follow the crowd and find the taxi place after, but when she moved away from Jack's torso and looked up, ready to tug him forward–
And they saw the Nightmare was ten feet away in the crowd, standing directly in front of them.
"T-Tooth?" he mumbled shakily.
She didn't hear him however as the Nightmare's rifle lifted and aimed it at Jack's chest.
Tooth's heart immediately dropped in her stomach.
"Tooth?!"
'Not again...NOT AGAIN!'
And she didn't hesitate.
Click.
"Tooth, run–"
And she spun herself into Jack, wrapping her arms around him tightly and shielding his front.
His eyes widened and gripped her horrifically.
"TOOTH, N–"
But two shots went off and Tooth gasped for air.
...
After the second was heard, Toothiana's tears sprung from her eyes and ran down her cheeks.
They both went perfectly still, waiting for the shots to reveal themselves...but the first bang didn't come from Pitch's Nightmare.
He'd pulled the first trigger, yes...but something (the first one to go off) exploded right in front of the Nightmare's chest as he did, and it threw his path off-course in a beam!
A bright light blinded him, a mini shockwave sent him flying back into five people and they all crashed onto the floor.
Pitch's Nightmare snapped his head around like a malfunctioning robot once the little bomb's smoke dissipated in front of him, he looked furiously through his ski goggles.
Who was the little shit that managed that?!
...
After seeing he was distracted, a six-foot guy nonchalantly (but hastily) walked up to the princess. He gripped her arm and leaned down to speak into her ear.
"Let 'im go, sheila, or we can't move 'im quick enough."
But the second his deep, gruff, Australian accent puffed warm breath onto her face, Tooth flinched violently like a ruffled bird.
"W-Who are you?!"
Jack's eyes cracked open. He snapped his head up at the sound of an unwelcomed visitor.
The guy was a little older than Jack by 2-3 years but his acid, green eyes showed a sharpness well beyond that. His posture was cool and confident and he had a strong, defined face and a stubbly chin. Tooth also noticed his short, dark brown hair had a shock of silver on one side. He'd frosted the tips blue.
When neither said anything, he furrowed his dark, thick eyebrows and frowned.
"Well? You two gonna move or what?"
Toothiana's glare darkened. Earlier she wanted the stranger's to help her, calling out desperately despite Jack's protests for support but when no one did and the Nightmare showed up now she felt she could only trust Jack and while it hurt to think that, she couldn't help it.
"Well?!" he urged again and Jack seemed to notice the change in Tooth since her silence was filled with the constant screaming and alarms still going off.
"Th...Kat," he switched to her fake name tensely. "W...Wh..."
Tooth heard him breathe through his nostrils again and sized up her chest achingly.
"Just...just get us to the exit, please!" she finally mustered and the stranger nodded.
"Right."
Jack glared at the Nightmare briefly (who was still looking for the person who threw that smoke bomb) as Tooth moved her arms from him and went to quickly support him on his right side. The mysterious Australian stranger supported Jack (much easier with his height) on the left and he looked around them for another quick second. Jack cringed slightly under his touch, still not used to anyone touching him other than Tooth but the pain hurt like a bitch.
"Wait for it," their 'friend' muttered and narrowed his eyes, waiting for a sudden wave of people and a group of businessmen that were grouping together. When the cluster passed, he signalled Tooth to start walking.
"Come on, you two," he hissed.
Tooth and Jack turned with him to trail in line with the men and once Tooth matched their strides with her short ones, all eight of them looked like a train sweeping away.
...
The assassin meanwhile finally got off the ground. He checked his rounds quickly before he growled angrily.
Forget the punk who tossed that light grenade. He needed to go after Jack Frost again, the guy who suddenly drew a lot of criminal interest recently. Everyone thought he was a urban myth of a criminal, wanted by so many international agencies and feared in rundown hangouts but so far no one could catch the guy, much less touch him. Now, he was suddenly appearing and he had the Princess Thia Pitch had been talking about for Operation Nightmare.
So this was his chance.
He'd gotten that report earlier that Pitch lost them in Wales and just as he was going to start his evil rounds in the Bronx, he spotted them – the princess and the damnable pain in Pitch's ass for days. So he got out the bipod and didn't call anyone for backup because he wanted the pleasure of offing Jack alone!
But now that plan looked like it would go up in smoke as he raged behind his mask and stormed ahead. Jack and the princess had vanished again and unless he wanted that pride, he had to tear through the crowd again and find him!
With a bullet near Frost's heart, they wouldn't have anything or anyone to stop him...but he didn't anticipate a new player to the field.
...
Evacuating BNI airport, 12:17 pm
Jack and Tooth's strange partner exhaled sharply through his nose as he helped moved Jack away with the princess and focused his mind back on the assassin behind them.
Thank his lucky rabbit's foot he made it just in time! Now he was one step ahead of Pitch's idiot and he would keep the score that way since he knew he'd planned it right. Tactical expertise was one of his best skills and he prepared and used it to incapacitate people in situations like this. He timed everything down to a T and threw distractions with accuracy, like that bomb, like an egg to the face.
As he thought deeply to himself, Tooth leaned up to Jack's ear.
"Don't worry," she mumbled heatedly. "I'll ditch him once he gets us out of here."
Jack looked down.
"You got a plan?"
"Yes."
"Does it involve kicking his balls?"
A part of her was proud that he seemed to remember that.
"Nope, not this time."
"Okay then, when I count to three, do what you need to and I–"
But Jack stopped as movement on his left stirred his attention a different way.
He watched through painful eyes as the taller brunette suddenly pulled out a silencer from inside his waistcoat, flicked his gaze behind him for a brief millisecond. He strained his ears powerfully in one section then without looking back, the guy shot a silent bullet behind him. It hit the clock right above the Nightmare perfectly.
As the glass fell, Pitch's goon stopped his hot pursuit instantly and spun to see what had caused it. When he did, the Aussie pulled out another tiny smoke bomb and tossed it forcefully his way.
It exploded right near Nightmare's his ear and he screeched painfully and doubled over. The crowd around him became a swarm of shrieks and sprinting. And that was their queue to leave.
"Now move, move!" he barked under his heavy breath.
Tooth and their mysterious hero guided Jack out at a diagonal cross and they tore through the taxi exit.
They rushing under a tunnel now with the rest of the people, screams of 'what's happening back there?!' and 'stay close guys' and the ever-prevalent 'worst Christmas ever!' seemed to bounce like ping pong balls. Jack moved quickly on his feet despite the numbing sensation trickling itself down his limbs. He tried to twirl a piece of the wind in his fingers. The stranger looked at his determined jaw set on the exit and he shifted his hold on Jack tighter.
"Atta boy," he mumbled gruffly but suddenly–
Bang!
A gunshot inside the airport went off close by and the wave of people began hurrying around them. He lifted his thick eyebrows high on his head.
"Crikey..."
"It's the cops!" Tooth cried after she looked over her shoulder and Jack's eyebrows shot up his forehead.
"I..." he gulped. "We need to go! Now!"
And the Aussie picked up speed while Tooth struggled to keep up. When they saw the taxi/passenger pickups, the Australian pointed to a parked one with dark windows close to the entrance.
"Go there!" he barked and when she nodded, they all rushed forward through the glass doors into a blast of New York's snowstorm.
And he nodded just as they stepped out of the threshold. The people outside were jaywalking, no jay-sprinting, their way through the cars and biting snow, and vehicles screeching away from the airport. Tens of police/ambulance lights blinded every path and it was definitely not supposed to be the scene of a Christmas Eve morning at the airport. That's when Tooth took a few more deep breaths before she leaned up to Jack.
"I'm ready," she hissed over the sound of the noise and Jack mumbled under his breath as the winter air blasted them in the face and the space was easier to move through.
"Alright, one..."
"Two..."
And when they reached new to the taxi, Tooth tightened her fist.
"Three."
Jack abruptly stopped walking and the guy paused to see what was wrong – but that was perfect opportunity as Tooth fiercely spun and kicked him in the shin with her boot.
The second he doubled over in surprised pain, Tooth let go of Jack and he spun his entire body around to throw his good elbow into an aggressive strike at the guy's torso. As they watched him choke and keel over, Jack shoved his hand into the guy's coat pocket and fished out his taxi's keys.
"Catch!" He tossed them to Tooth. "You drive!"
Toothiana immediately unlocked the taxi and opened the back door. After Jack tossed himself in, she shut the door and sprinted around the side to get in the driver's seat. Her skirt floated behind her wildly in the cold, December wind but she only touched a finger to the handle when the Aussie suddenly reappeared beside her with the more feral look on his face.
"What do you think you're doing?!"
His lips pulled back in a silent snarl to reveal large, straight teeth and his surprise pop-up made her cover her mouth in terror and she backed into the back door of the taxi instead. Tooth blindly began reaching for the door handle to get Jack out – or go in, she wasn't sure.
"I...I need to get him to a hospital!" she tried to gasp bravely but the sound of gunshots going off and Jack's blood mixed with her uncles was all she could really see. "W-We're sorry b-but–"
"Oy, do you even know these streets? " he asked threateningly and Tooth's eyebrows shot up as if he was questioning capability.
"Yes!" she lied and he easily saw through it.
"That guy need's a special sew-up, trust me!"
"Which is why a surgeon can do it!"
And Tooth tried to push past him but he grabbed her arm and pushed her away from the driver's seat.
"Let me go!" she screamed and he pulled back instantly. His eyebrows knitted together.
"You don't get it," he muttered loudly over the constant screaming. "We're running out of time!"
"I know!" she bellowed and she dropped one hand and secretly brushed it again her pistol under her skirt. "So stop getting in my way or he–"
"No, you don't! That's bullet's laced!"
And Tooth stopped.
"W...How would–"
"So you can't go to a hospital, princess. I need to take it out myself!"
"Oh yeah, where?!"
"Where Pitch's Nightmare can't find you! On North's orders."
"Wh–"
And she mind stopped and her mouth went slack with fear.
'He called me princess...he's knows about the Nightmare...and he said North.'
Tooth gasped despite her jackhammer heart but he didn't want to hear the rest of it.
"I know who you are, princess. Now get in! And gimme my keys before he spots us."
And Tooth barely registered the rest as she handed them numbly over and opened the back door. As she climbed in and the Australian moved into the driver's seat, Jack instantly panicked and whirled on her.
"You let him in?!" he seethed. "Why would y–"
Tooth gasped for air and shut her eyes.
"I know, I know!" she heaved but after taking a moment to look down darkly onto the taxi's carpet, she whirled in her seat.
Tooth reached under her skirt for her left pistol and put it to his head around his headrest. She took a steady breath.
"Ten seconds: Your connection with North or your brains all over the dashboard!" she growled and clicked off the safety.
Jack and the Australian looked at her in shock. When his green eyes flit to the rearview mirror, he caught her pause in her tirade to pull away her face slightly with a horrified look on her face.
'I...Oh my god, Tooth!'
She suddenly pictured Tiana back away from her in fear, telling her she didn't know her anymore...but Tooth shook her head.
'No! This is n-necessary...I need to make sure we'll be okay. That Jack will be okay!'
Tooth swallowed tightly and pushed her gun into his hair again.
She gritted her teeth in angry shame.
"Talk!"
The green-eyed Aussie looked at her again and hesitantly raised his hands slowly.
He was honestly confused and sorely worried – but North said she was a sweet girl, a raised to be a princess! So wh–
Jack didn't want to sit idly by and watch for their exchange.
He glared and even though he couldn't see straight anymore, and reached under Tooth's skirt and pulled out the second gun. He clicked off the safety too and poised it gently at the guy too, ready in case he did something to Tooth. But the Australian heard the click with his powerful ears and looked at Jack in the glass with a dark look.
Oh. So that's where she learned to be so hostile.
His glare darkened on Jack's face, despite seeing it grow clammy from the wound and he spoke to Tooth, but kept his gaze steady locked with Jack's.
"An ELF sent me a message and sent me the coordinates to here," he explained slowly. "But that shouldn't even matter right now since the guy needs medical help."
"So then where are you taking us?" Tooth hissed again and he blinked at her and pointed to the onboard screen of his taxi's computer.
Tooth lifted her gaze for a second to stare at the GPS on taxi's dashboard but when she did, her mouth fell open.
It was not a GPS. Well not, just a GPS.
The guy's entire onboard setup was like something out of a sci-fi movie. He had touchscreens and keyboard navigation and two small computer monitors doing something with algorithms she couldn't read. It was all so high-tech and the techie in Tooth won over as she silently adored the gadgets latched onto his ride.
"That's...that's your system?" she gawked, completely off homicidal-Tooth-mode. He looked back at her and nodded.
"Well yeah," he said stiffly, still worried about the two guns pointed at him. "She's a beaut. I configured the entire hard drive did it myself."
"W...Wow," she breathed despite herself and Jack blinked up at her in shock.
"Serious–Gah!" He stopped to twist slightly when his wound throbbed painfully.
Tooth and the guy blinked and she moved away slowly from the driver seat into the back, keeping her gun up at his head as a warning before she put it away.
"I'm taking you both to The Warren. Enough questions," the guy muttered and he started the engine, wiping the windshield and revving the gas.
A second later, their mysterious partner tore away from the curb and jetted the sleek cab into the connecting roads.
As he started to gain speed, four bullets were fired just behind them.
...
Outside the BNI airport, 12:20 pm
The green-eyed brunette glared through his side view mirrors and his onboard trunk-camera. Pitch's Nightmare was shooting up all the cars in blind aggression as the idiot did, several cop cars showed up. On impulse, Tooth watched the taller brunette press the gas a little too hard and–
Screech!
The cab's tires echoed loudly around the drop-off!
The Nightmare turned instantly to their cab speeding away and he bolted down the icy cement sidewalk after them.
Tooth's heartbeat picked up in her chest. She bit her lip as the guy swerved the taxi in and out of stopping traffic while Jack gritted his teeth as the car swayed violently.
"What the hell, man!" Jack growled, unimpressed. "Stay calm."
"Oy, pull your head in!" he snapped from the front and Jack narrowed his eyes.
"What did you just say to me?!"
But the guy gritted his teeth and continued twisting through the traffic.
Tooth saw them again in the rearview mirror.
'Okay, I admit it. Those are some awesome teeth–I mean –Gah!'
She shook her head.
'Really Tooth?! Really?! NOW?!'
Well, okay no set of teeth could beat Jack's in her opinion but–
"Bullocks!" he suddenly cried and Tooth snapped her head to the onboard trunk-cam.
The Nightmare was catching up to them...on his feet! And after realising who the shooter was after, so were the police!
"Oh no!"
He swerved the car again and Jack smacked into Tooth with an angry grunt.
"Argh! Do something, idiot!"
"I am!"
"What?!"
But just as they got closer (and Pitch's deranged assassin and the police got closer) he pressed 'auto-drive' on his computer and opened his driver's door.
A second later, the guy flung the top half of his body over the side.
"Oh MY GOD!" Tooth screamed over the howl of the hoarfrost.
She moved away from Jack to pull him back in but then they both felt the car suddenly begin to shake.
"W-Wh't's he doin t'the car?!" Jack hissed out painfully.
Tooth eased him back gently and scrambled to the window to see. When she did, her face was slapped with cold and her skin turned pale.
"J-Jack? ...I-It's not the car!" she mumbled through chattering teeth.
She watched as the snowy concrete around the car suddenly split and crack apart. It began to drift backwards so Tooth climbed up and sat against the backseat. Tooth watched in silent horror as the cracks they ran over continued to grow behind them.
Her mouth fell open. Jack saw her move to the window and open it all the away and stick her head out.
"What is it?!" He wanted to reach over and pull her back in (or join her) but the pain in his shoulder stopped him. "Tooth!"
But she ignored him so Jack decided it was easier to see what she was seeing through the trunk-cam on the onboard computer.
His mouth fell open too.
"Wh...what the f–" But a loud roll like thunder suddenly covered his yell, the car honks, the gunshots, and the police sirens. The concrete road behind them began to split apart and create deep fissures crawling away and the more they appeared, the more the shaking increased.
It suddenly felt like someone had lifted the vehicle and was abruptly moving it side-to-side and Tooth lost her balance.
When she banged into side of the window, she let loose a string of English-Thai curse words and the brunette cried out briefly when another shot of pain got past his jedi pain defences.
"Argh, Toothiana! What's–"
"I-It's an earthquake! But...But it's–Holy crap!"
The cracks grew larger and spread like veins across both highways, making cars either speed up or slow down to avoid them until it started to do something.
The rocks began to twist on themselves, cracking up and coiling in like there was something moving underneath – then it rushed forward in a rock wave towards the direction of the airport – towards the Nightmare and the cops! And when it reached them the concrete began to crumble. It gave away bit-by-bit as if something were eating from beneath and as the hole grew bigger and deeper, all the cars that were following behind them hit their breaks to avoid falling in.
That included the Nightmare chasing on foot.
He stopped short of a now giant hole in the highway and side flipped to avoid getting hit by a car – but a truck hit him instead and he was tossed into the horrible pit.
"Oh my god," Tooth breathed and Jack widened his eyes, mumbling disbelievingly.
"That's not an earthquake, Toothiana. That's a sinkhole."
The cops rammed hard on their brakes and immediately got out, ushering everyone out of their vehicles to get them away from the seismic activity.
Tooth watched helplessly as several people stumbled on the shaky ground.
'How is this happening?!...Wait, oh no! The guy!'
She didn't see him roll out of the car yet and glanced back to the front of the taxi to see if he was still alive or not.
"Wh-WHAT?"
He was. But he had this hard, focused look on his face – the same look she saw Nicholas St. North have when he used his desire gene on that Nightmare, and the same one she saw Jack have when he blew apart the alley with that hurricane.
"He's...He's..."
"Too...T!" Jack grunted. "Wh'ts he's doing?"
She mumbled out the rest as she watched his hand continue drag out cracks in the road beside the taxi.
"H-He's doing it. He's...m-making it."
And she continued to watch with her own eyes as the smooth cracks that erupted from his fingertips until he was done.
When he thought there was enough distance to stop the Nightmare and distract the rest of the airport's visitors, the Australian guy twisted himself back into the taxi. Tooth bit her lip and moved back into the warmth of the cab as he shut the door and turned the car off auto-drive. When the split in the road finally came up, he took the road on the left leading to the highway.
The second he exhaled a deep breath, she eyed him with wide eyes.
"Y-You have it," she mumbled. Jack didn't hear when he growled under his breath as another shot of pain spiked through him.
"Argh!" but the guy heard with his extensively-acute ears and he furrowed his thick, skeptical brows.
"Hm?" he said under his breath and she exhaled shakily, staring at him through the mirror.
"You h-have it." And she narrowed her eyes nervously. "Th–"
But Jack suddenly fell on her slightly and her attention immediately switched to him. As she helped ease Jack back, her hand smeared across his chest and she looked down at it in terror. She ignored the guy and the scenes that were flying past the cab's windows.
Pulling his trenchcoat away, Tooth choked slightly when she saw how red his hand was. She patted herself and bag for anything to stop the bleeding.
"I...I-I don't have a towel or a sock," she shivered apprehensively and Jack eyed her worriedly. He didn't have anything in his bag either and hadn't remembered to ask or take any from the ELFs.
Tooth then stopped when she felt a lump in her pocket. Pulling it out, she saw the Christmas handkerchief the little girl gave her and wadded it into a tight square and pressed it with both palms above his heart.
Jack hissed out painfully but otherwise looked fine and moved to hold it with her.
"It's f-fine...Y-You'll be fine..." Tooth kept jittering through cold lips and she shut her eyes, counting to ten in her head again.
No one was really sure if she was saying it for him or for herself.
...
Outside Buffalo, 12:56 pm
Jack was silent for the next fifteen minutes trying to regulate his breathing and move as little as possible.
He knew the severities of gun shots (having been through a couple more times than he'd liked to remember) but he didn't want to do anything drastic since he knew the princess was in a fragile mind. It showed as she sat away from him to try and give him space, but her catatonic state and her tight breathing put him on edge.
'You should talk to him!' she kept thinking, trying to warm up and playing with her glove in her lap. 'That's what people do so they don't pass out right? So talk!'
But when she looked at Jack, the brunette was staring coldly around the car and out the wintery windows, his face set on mental assessments and escape routes. She decided to pretend he was fine for a second and glared back at their driver.
"So what is a 'warren'?" she asked bravely.
The Aussie cast his forest, green eyes to his rearview mirror and looked at the princess. As he did, the sun peeked through a cloud over them and the light danced over her face. Suddenly her dark, pink eyes popped like jewels against her gold brown skin.
He blinked before he focused back on the road.
"Not a warren, The Warren, princess," he said firm and proud. "An underground bunker I designed myself with North's discretion."
When he finished answering, Tooth and Jack watched him turn off the highway and follow a steady road into the more country part of the state past the suburbs. He kept looking at his onboard screen and tapping things to dismiss updates or send messages before he continued.
"Nightmares haven't tracked me there yet and I get messages from the ELFs down under."
She furrowed her eyebrows.
"What's y'ur name?" Jack finally spoke and the two looked at him in surprise – they almost forgot he was there. The Aussie stared at him before he tightened his glove on the wheel and glared through the windshield.
"The name's Aster," he said with such conviction that Jack didn't push it. But Tooth had no filter at the moment and raised her eyebrows.
"Aster. Seriously?"
He nodded and Tooth's mouth dropped slightly in frustration.
"You expect me to believe that?!"
When he didn't answer, she whirled on Jack.
"And you," she started and was tripping up on her words. "Shouldn't you be passed out right about now? Because we almost died again and there's a bullet in you and I haven't seen a hospital in sight even though he–"
Tooth paused when Jack craned his neck at her.
He glared slightly through his shifting vision before his eyebrows scrunched together and he looked away.
He didn't bother to answer her either. When she looked between both of them and their weirdly dyed hair, she sighed and fell back against her seat with her fists balled tight beside her skirt. She felt 20% alone, 30% in distress, and the other 50% suddenly pissed.
"I swear to god, wh...Why am I always surrounded by men with no social skills?!" she muttered bitterly.
"Oy, I heard that," the guy quipped from the front and Jack quirked a brow.
"Your big ears would hear that," he retorted.
Tooth gaped, ready to slander Jack for his rudeness since he'd just saved their life. But the guy glanced at the brunette through the rearview mirror.
"Pfft, you're one to talk, mate."
Jack sent him a dark look.
He had no back comment and shut up instantly, feeling nausea wash over him and seeing more black spots than he could count.
Blowing out a shaky breath, Jack suddenly reached into trenchcoat painfully and produced the gum he bought for Tooth. She watched him pop a stick in his mouth tensely before he looked at her.
He then gave the rest to her and she choked slightly at the gesture, and did the same.
...
Buffalo, abandoned dirt plot, 1:17 pm
Jack didn't say anything as he stepped out of the car with Tooth's help – he actually hadn't said a word since that ear comment and that worried both Tooth and their 'new friend.'
When they were all out of the car, the snow was up to their ankles and Tooth moved Jack quickly across a dirt patch away to give him air to breathe and he weakly stirred a breeze between his finger as she watched, her little heart battering wildly in her chest.
Every nerve in her body was telling her to kick this guy in the nuts, steal his car, and drive Jack back to the city the more she realised how dumb she was to let this guy drive them out to the middle of nowhere.
What if he actually was a Nightmare in disguise and they'd been emotionally crazy about getting out of the airport alive? Cold sweat started to form and freeze on her neck.
'Oh god, now he's going to leave Jack to bleed to death in grass, and take me t–'
"This way, you two! Come on!" Aster harped and gestured to a tiny wooden structure at the end of the road. He tightened his fur-laced jacket over his head before he quickly moved to Jack's side and hoisted him up again. Jack cried out painfully and for a moment, his vision fuzzed dangerously out of focus. But he couldn't move his left hand up to rub his eye.
"My..." he bit out. "M' arm's numb."
Tooth nervously moved her hand holding around his waist to clutch it and almost cried out. His normally, cold fingertips were deathly frozen and blood dripped onto the beautiful white snow like rubies.
Aster saw blood on the princess' fingers when she pulled it away.
"Make sure he puts pressure on that!" he barked and Tooth moved her other hand shakily up into his trenchcoat and pressed her palm over it.
Their boots crunched across grass and hard ice blanketing the landscape. But with each breath, Jack's lungs burned against the very element he loved most and his blood marked the away.
Aster would handle it later.
At the end of the dirt patch, there was a tiny wooden tool shed that looked like it hadn't been touched in years. Aster opened it and stepped inside and as Tooth moved Jack inside too they saw it was set up like a kid's abandoned clubhouse or something. An old toy robot and a stuffed rabbit sat on a wooden shelf and some broken pieces of colorful chalk littered the frost-covered grass in a perfect cover up.
Once they were all standing in the tiny, confined space, he shut the door and let the semi-darkness engulf them.
Jack blinked painfully against the change in the lighting and clenched his jaw. Aster glared down at the shorter brunette.
"How ya holding up?" he mumbled softly as the warm air billowed past his lips.
Tooth looked back at Jack and frowned openly. They watched his skin grow more washed out.
His eyelids fluttered, desperate to keep open but after his gaze locked on the stuffed animal, Jack gritted his teeth.
"Never better, cottontail," he muttered.
Aster's look darkened but when he saw the princess' nervous gaze from the tension and small space of the shed, he let up instantly and relaxed his angry features.
"Okay, good on ya," he replied, trying to respect Jack's endurance for pain and stamina. "Now let's get you patched up."
Jack looked unconvinced.
"In here? Wh'...Wh–!" but he suddenly wheezed out and Tooth's eyebrows shot up in alarm.
"Jack?"
"I..." he gasped again and suddenly his heart felt like it dropped into his stomach. "I-I–"
His body convulsed slightly and Tooth moved in to check his gun wound again but he coughed out.
Jack began to breathe heavily.
"Jack!"
The strong burning sensation he'd been trying to repress for nearly 40 minutes now was starting to build and he couldn't understand why. He'd been hit before in other places and always lasted out to at least an hour and half on the pain.
But this wasn't the same...the gun shot suddenly felt different.
"I need–" he gasped. "I n'd..."
"Oy, hang on mate!" the Aussie cried and tapped his boot on the frost-covered glass twice and suddenly, seven blue lights lit up in a small circle around them and the ground they were standing on lowered slightly.
Tooth gulped and Jack leaned on her more heavily as the blue light seared past his shut eyelids.
"An-Another sinkhole?"
"No, sheila, it's a leveller," he answered and a second later a flap above them flipped down. It had the sketch of an egg cracking open and the words 'PASSWORD' flying out of out.
And when Tooth looked at him for wide-eyed clarification, the green-eyed brunette narrowed his eyes and looked down.
"Bottoms up."
Suddenly, they felt like they were dropping as the platform lowered them deeper and deeper into the ground, pulling all the cold air away and out of their lungs.
As the light faded, Tooth squeezed herself tighter into Jack. The wind made their hair fly up.
"Don't pass out!" she cried and Jack pushed his cheek heavily into her hair to stop himself from falling sideways.
"I'm..." but he began to hyperventilate without control. Everything started to slow down as the rip in his shoulder and the burn in his lungs started to tear his insides.
'Th-This bullet's a...it's a Nightmare d...a Nightmare design! I don't...And I can't leave her!'
Jack felt her push her face into his chest and blood moved slightly.
He panicked.
"T...T'th, no! S-Stop!"
But his words fell on deaf ears as the wind whooshed them down. Jack suddenly began to see white spots against the black and all at once, Pitch's face and his words were suddenly fighting for dominance in his head.
Tooth clutched him tighter and he wanted her to let go since he was suddenly reminded of all the terrible things that happened to her since they'd met.
'I can't go back to that, I can't! I...'
He didn't want to see his blood on her hands or, dear god, her face and it made him sick and dizzy as the ride began to slow.
Jack's heart began to beat wildly and his head started to burn.
Tooth realised he wasn't standing straight.
"Jack?" she called in the dark but he didn't respond and tried to pull himself up.
"Jack?"
When Aster pushed open a part of the circular hole they were standing in, Tooth pulled her head away from his chest to look up at him. Just as she did, Jack saw a bright light suddenly shine on one part of her face.
His blood was painted all over her face.
'That's not mine! That can't be m–' And Jack finally couldn't take the excruciating pain.
He gasped out the last of his cold breath onto her face. The next thing Toothiana knew, his eyes rolled into the back of his head and his legs gave out from under him.
Aster turned in panic as she nearly fell, trying to hold him up under his arms.
"Ja...Jack! No! Open your eyes!"
She clutched a handful of his hair.
"OPEN YOUR EYES!"
...but he didn't.
Chapter's soundtrack: "Louder Than Thunder (Quiet Like Snow)" – The Devil Wears Prada