Pitch peeled potatoes while Tooth filled a pot with water from the tap.
Following a brief discussion on the dietary requirements of fairies and Pitch's insistence that pancakes were not suitable for an evening meal, both had decided vegetable soup was a diplomatic solution they could both live with.
Pitch flicked a peel into the bin from his knife with a flourish and rotated it using only one hand.
As Tooth rolled her eyes, he raised a smug eyebrow.
Tooth fought the urge to laugh.
'Trying to impress me?' she asked, checking the fire in the oven.
'Just trying to make things a bit more exciting', Pitch said.
'It's vegetable soup Pitch', Tooth laughed, 'It's not supposed to be exciting'.
'Maybe not the way you make it', Pitch shrugged but Tooth felt a sting of disappointment as he began chopping in a more normal fashion.
'So how much longer until we're done with these sessions?' Pitch asked, examining the diagram on the back of his hand as he chopped. He still couldn't make head nor tail of it.
'Not long', Tooth said, studying her own.
The dot had moved into the second inner circle. Just one more circle to navigate and it would reach the centre, unlocking Pitch's powers.
'A couple more sessions tomorrow', she elaborated, 'Then we go after Candy'.
Pitch gave a sudden start and put the knife down. The potato fell on the floor and rolled away.
Tooth bent down and picked it up.
She noticed Pitch staring at his hand, seemingly transfixed by the sight of the blood pooling around a cut on his palm. It was strange for her seeing him bleed. She knew it must be more unusual and unpleasant for Pitch.
'Are you okay?' Tooth asked.
'Knife slipped, it's fine', Pitch said, 'Just a bit of blood…there's blood…on my hands'.
'It's not a bad cut', Tooth said, having a look, 'Still, where do you keep the plasters?'
'There's blood on your hands!' Pitch suddenly shouted.
Tooth hovered out of reach of Pitch's arms as he tried to grab her.
He gripped the counter top as he ranted at her.
'Why couldn't you save them?! I told you!'
Pitch's fingers twisted in his hair and his eyes rolled wildly.
Tooth couldn't think what to do. It was another memory flash but Pitch looked so deranged she wasn't sure how to help him.
'I told you they were still out there and you did nothing!' Pitch snarled but then turned his head swiftly, 'Shut up Sandy! Shut up! How can you stand there and defend him?!'
Tooth dodged Pitch's pointing finger as he jabbed it towards a spot just behind her.
'Pitch!' Tooth said loudly, grabbing his shoulder.
'I'll kill you myself!' Pitch roared, tears pouring from his eyes and saliva flying from his frenzied lips, 'Murderer! Get out of the way Sandy! I mean it! I'll go through you to get to him I don't care!'
'Pitch! Stop it!' Tooth yelled, grabbing him as he tried to push past her.
Using her right foot, she hooked his knee, knocking him off balance and down on to his opposite knee. Still standing above him, she grabbed his face in both her hands.
She twisted his head so he was looking at her.
'It's me! Look!' she commanded.
It seemed to be a step in the right direction. Pitch's chest was heaving and his facial features were contorted in grief but his voice was quieter now.
'I couldn't save them…I promised I'd be there…I wasn't there!' he sobbed, looking at her desperately.
'It's ok', Tooth said soothingly, using her fingers to stroke his face, 'It's ok. It's over now'.
She moved a few strands of wayward hair out of his eyes.
She was struck by how bright they were. So full of emotion.
They were mainly brown but there were also golden and green flecks that shone out of the depths.
They were beautiful eyes.
The close movement of Tooth's hand across Pitch's field of vision seemed to snap him out of his flashback.
The grief was gone in an instant: the rage in Pitch's eyes replaced by puzzlement as he blinked at her. She let go of his face slowly but he remained kneeling. He rubbed his eyes and tutted when he realised he had rubbed blood on his face.
'Here', Tooth said, handing him a nearby tea towel.
Pitch took it and wiped his face then held it against his injured hand.
There was a long silence.
'What happened to Pitchiner's family?' Tooth asked finally.
'They died', Pitch said emotionlessly. He had obviously been anticipating the question.
Tooth looked away uncomfortably. She didn't know what to say.
She felt like comforting him but she reminded herself this wasn't the same person who had been weeping a mere few seconds ago.
'I'll be glad when this whole thing is over', Pitch said, standing up, 'Pitchiner's done more damage to me than Candy has'.
Tooth went back to stirring the pot.
Her heart was pounding. This flashback had been much more intense than the previous one. If Pitch had kept going she wasn't sure how she could have stopped him without the risk of hurting him.
So much rage and grief. Had the Tsar been responsible for the death of Pitchiner's family?
She found it hard to process that anybody related to Manny could have had anything to do with something so horrible.
Pitch, noticing her lack of response and unfocused stare into the soup, asked, 'I didn't hurt you did I?'
'No', Tooth said, 'I was more worried about you hurting yourself'.
Pitch didn't know what to say: his usual articulate nature escaping him as he watched Tooth stir.
The normality of her actions (completely at odds with her magical nature) fascinated him. As did the incomprehensible action of helping him.
Tooth was worried? About him?
Someone who had never given her anything but trouble?
So he said what his brain told him should be said in such circumstances.
'Thank you Tooth. For helping me'.
He was astonished to find he meant it.
It made Tooth pause her stirring for a moment.
Thanks? From Pitch Black?!
In what had sounded like a genuine tone of voice?!
And Pitch had used her name. She couldn't remember him ever using her name like that. Usually if he bothered to use it, his tone was condescending: 'dear Toothiana' was a favourite. He never called her 'Tooth' that was for sure.
'Hey, that's what friends do', she shrugged in what she hoped was an off handed kind of way.
Friends. Yes that's what they were. If even that.
Actually it was more 'allies of convenience' really. Isn't that what Pitch had made clear earlier?
'Ugh', came an exaggerated groan from Pitch, 'Please don't start that kind of talk. It'll spoil my appetite'.
Out of the corner of her eye Tooth saw he was smiling as he searched in the drawers for a plaster.
It was a different smile than she was used to: no cruel twist to the pale mouth and no bared teeth. It was a little self-conscious smile and unlike his usual smirks, it reached his eyes.
As she added a dash of salt to the soup, she decided she liked it when he smiled like that.
In a purely platonic way of course.

Jack hopped from tree branch to tree branch in Burgess Park as he sped towards the lair entrance.
According to Bunny it was still open (probably Pitch no longer had the energy to close it) but the residual magic was still strong enough to repel any unwanted visitors.
Dropping to ground level soundlessly, he parted a large hedge and saw the familiar broken bed standing above the hole.
Reaching into his hoodie, he took out a poster, carefully folded to allow easy transportation. He had grabbed it off a lamppost as he had entered the park.
He regretted maybe costing Candy attendees by taking the poster but he and Bunny had agreed in advance it would make perfect bait. They were stuck up all over town: it was almost inevitable one poster would drift down to the lair. It also meant Candy wouldn't notice what they were doing.
Jack had said they could drop the teeth down but when he had tried to grab them his fingers had seized up. Bunny had experienced the same thing. Candy did not want the teeth moved.
So the only way to get them to Pitch was to make him stumble across them unprotected. To do that, they had to lure him out.
Jack dropped the poster into the pit and drawing on the North Wind, blew it down the passage leading to the lair. Then, satisfied his part of the mission was complete, hastened back to base, hoping his absence had gone unnoticed.

Later that night Tooth tossed and turned in her blanket.
She couldn't sleep.
The memory flashes Pitch was having were her fault and they were getting worse.
He knew they were her fault but he hadn't asked her to stop.
He hadn't even mentioned it over dinner. Instead they had talked about the other Guardians.
Pitch had a dim opinion of every one of them. North was too jolly and Bunny was too full of himself. He hadn't talked about Sandy at all. Strangely he hadn't been very hard on Jack Frost who he just dismissed as 'too young to know any better'.
Tooth had asked if he thought he was maybe being too judgemental. Pitch said he didn't think so before launching into a tirade about what connection there could possibly be between a seven foot rabbit and chocolate eggs.
Tooth still felt guilty at laughing at Pitch's interpretation of Bunny's accent.
But she felt more guilty about the memory sessions.
She knew they were both desperate but she hoped there wouldn't be any lasting damage.
She wasn't sure she could live with herself.
Even though he would never admit it, the fact that Pitch was allowing her to continue meant he trusted her. She wouldn't let him down.
There were only a couple of sessions to go. Then they could get back to…
What?
Trying to destroy each other again?
Finally throwing the sheets off, she decided to go for a walk.
Pitch hadn't told her she couldn't.
Then again it was his house. Maybe he wouldn't want her wandering around unsupervised.
She steeled herself and opened the door.
She wasn't his prisoner. Besides it would only be a short walk.
Onyx was waiting outside and her ears perked up as Tooth saw her.
'Going for a walk', Tooth explained, 'Can't sleep'.
Onyx chuffed and stood beside her, waiting patiently.
Tooth shrugged and began to walk, followed by Onyx.
Supervised walk it was.
As they walked, Tooth noticed her visibility wasn't bad despite the darkness.
Looking upwards she noticed the ceiling was glimmering.
'Bio luminescence?' she asked out loud but Onyx gave a shake of the head.
As she shook her head bits of sand scattered from her whiplike mane.
The sand granules vanished into nothing and Onyx tilted her head towards them.
'Dreamsand', Tooth marvelled as she recognised the golden grains in the black rock.
As they descended the familiar spiralling staircase, Tooth saw the other Nightmares still hard at work collecting teeth. The piles had gotten larger since the previous day, some reaching the Nightmare's knees.
'Do you need any help?' she asked Onyx but the Nightmare gave a vigorous shake of the head, walking towards the globe.
Nodding towards it, Tooth noticed each growing pile of teeth had been swept into a distinct pile at different points around the globe's base. Each pile corresponded to the continent on that side of the globe.
She was dismayed though to see most of the teeth stacked in the USA pile were stained with sickly pink residue. It was spreading to the other piles. Candy's chokehold was strong.
Shaking her head to ignore the nagging magical signature from the teeth, she turned to Onyx.
'Can I borrow a book? To take my mind off this?'

Entering the library, Tooth saw the place was still a mess from the 'bookquake' she had caused.
Onyx gave a disgruntled snort but Tooth thought it was perfect!
Cataloguing always helped her relax.

Pitch couldn't sleep either.
That damn lullaby just would not stop playing in his mind!
He stuffed the pillow over both his ears and growled.
He had been having a dream when it had rudely intruded, propelling him back to wakefulness.
He never dreamt but tonight he had.
It had been a nice dream.
He had been sitting on a hillside watching the sunset. He had felt such peace. The only sound had been the gentle sound of birdsong as he had watched the clouds change from white to pink as the sun had begun to set.
Then he had felt someone approaching from behind.
They were small footprints. A woman's footprints.
She had sat down beside him.
He hadn't looked at her, simply content that she was there with him.
Her hand had been close to his and he had slowly reached for it.
He felt the silken feathers on her wrist as he began to take her hand.
But then that lullaby had shattered the image and he had lost her as he had opened his eyes.
Throwing the pillow aside, he threw on an old bathrobe and left the bedroom, hoping a walk would clear his head.
Unbeknownst to him, he took the same route Tooth had taken but headed instead towards the entrance to the lair.
He wanted some fresh air.
The lair was his home but the darkness and empty spaces usually never bothered him.
He craved a change of scenery.
As he stared upwards he could see the starry sky shining far above the broken boards of the bed.
He couldn't remember when he had last looked at the stars.
Usually he would be casting furtive glances upwards to make sure the Man in the Moon wasn't watching as he snuck about trying to grab whatever scraps of fear he could gather. That didn't leave time to look at the stars.
He wondered what else he had been missing hiding in the darkness.
The train of thought was beginning to depress him so he turned around and began to head back inside.
His bare foot crunched on a piece of paper and he picked it up with a muttered curse.
Trash falling down the hole couldn't be helped. He knew that.
Usually the Nightmares cleaned up anything that fell down (even on one memorable occasion when a drunken hobo had stumbled in and got the fright of his life) but all of them were on tooth collection duty.
He opened the paper to see what it said out of idle curiosity.
As he finished reading it, he gave a low whistle.
Onyx materialized out of the wall to his right.
She had a hardback in her mouth.
'She's in the library I take it?' Pitch said, extracting the hardback.
He waved it to shake free the black granules that made up Onyx's saliva.
Onyx nodded and as Pitch walked to find Tooth, he laughed inwardly.
It was funny that a horse could look so sheepish.

'So it's true then'.
Tooth jumped at Pitch's voice and dropped the book she had been holding in her left hand. Her other arm held three other volumes. She had been concentrating on how to categorise a couple of unusual volumes on the high shelves she had found. They bore no titles or numbers and when she opened them, the parchment of the pages shone with strange letters.
She tried to grab the book as it fell from her position about ten feet in the air.
Pitch easily caught it before it hit the floor.
As she flew down, Pitch concluded, 'A woman moves in and starts changing everything'.
He couldn't deny he was impressed. The books that had previously formed the tall pillar that had nearly flattened them both earlier had been cleared and sorted into smaller piles.
Tooth on the other hand was more concerned with how she could see Pitch's chest through the opening in his bathrobe.
'Just cleaning up my mess', she said chirpily, trying to ignore the lean muscle conveniently at her eye level, 'Though I'm not sure what to do with these books. They're magical but I don't recognise their aura'.
'Because they're not from Earth', Pitch said.
'These are from the Lunar Imperium? Why do you have them?'
'Just because I hated the people of the Imperium doesn't mean I can't appreciate the beautiful things they made'.
'Strange letters', Tooth commented. She ran her fingers over a sentence and it vanished. Then as she watched, new words began to form. She couldn't read the writing but the shape of the runes were different than they had been previously.
'Moon writing. Disappears as you read it. One A4 scroll can hold the contents of a large novel', Pitch explained.
'Did you carry these all the way from the Imperium?'
'Sandy did. Then I borrowed them'.
'You mean you stole them', Tooth said incredulously.
'Only ones I assumed he wouldn't miss. An assumption that has since been proven correct', Pitch said unapologetically.
'Like?' Tooth prompted.
'That one's a gardening manual for the celestial tree downstairs', Pitch said, pointing to the one she was holding.
He took one from her other arm and looked at the title.
'This one is the letter 'N' volume of the complete Lunar Encyclopedia', he said.
'Why 'N'?' Tooth asked, 'You didn't want a full subscription?'
Pitch flicked it open to a page marked with a velvet bookmark.
'Quite fetching I thought. Though they did exaggerate my nose', he said as he handed it back to her.
The page showed a picture of Pitch, resplendent in a long black cloak and a twisted dark wooden staff in his long fingers. Pitch was right: they had exaggerated his nose.
On the opposite page was a dark mass with two disc like eyes crowned with what seemed to be a jagged crown. In the centre was a black crystal separated from the creature's body by a silver aura.
The two pages had one singular title: 'Nightmare King'. There was no data about the images save for a single sentence written in large, bold text.
It read 'Destroy On Sight'.
'What about these maps then?' Tooth asked, closing the book and gesturing to a nearby desk. She had found them tucked inside an old Earth atlas and stacked them on the desk until she could decide on a safer way to store them
Pitch picked up the corner of the topmost chart then let it drop.
'They're useless now that the Imperium is gone', he said, 'Just schematics for lunar defences and data about eclipses'.
'Eclipses?'
'When the Tsars needed to recharge the magical shields protecting their planets, they would have to turn them off temporarily and the planet beneath the shield moons would go dark. Hence an eclipse'.
'I'm guessing you once had some sort of plan for these shields?'
'Yes but the Imperium fell before I could implement it. I was expecting more of a fight'.
'So what about Earth's moon then?' Tooth asked, her curiosity piqued, 'Manny lives there now but I'm pretty sure the galaxy had eclipses before he showed up'.
'Correct', Pitch acknowledged, enjoying Tooth's questioning of the unusual subject matter, 'but he has to stick to this galaxy's schedule. An eclipse comes round, his defences go down instead of him causing an eclipse whenever he wants. He didn't escape with the technology to change that'.
'I'm surprised you never tried to attack-' Tooth began half-jokingly.
'I did', Pitch deadpanned, 'North handled it as I recall'.
'Oh'.
'It was a foolish plan anyway. The Russian space program was the wrong horse to back'.
'What's that in your hand?' Tooth asked, diverting attention away from Pitch's past defeats.
Pitch handed the folded poster to her.
Glitter fell from the paper as Tooth took it and began to read.
It was advertising a carnival the next day from dawn to dusk to celebrate Candy's concert that night. It was taking place in Burgess Park, the same location of the concert. Apparently those who hadn't secured tickets to watch the concert on stage would be able to watch and listen on large screen TVs set up around the area.
'Rather convenient don't you think?' Pitch asked, crossing his arms.
'Especially the fold lines', Tooth agreed, 'But worth checking out'.
'Even though we know it's more than likely a trap?'
'We need to figure out what Candy has planned. When we get your powers back, we can't go in blind like last time. Anyway it may not be a trap. Not the smartest bait is it?'
'We'll need disguises'.
'Even me?'
'It's a carnival. Plenty of children about. Besides Candy has the entire town of Burgess believing whatever she wants. For all we know, we're public enemy one and two'.
'You have anything in black Mr Expert on Stealth Missions?' Tooth joked.
'I'll see what I can do', Pitch said, 'I just hope I don't end up having to give a free magic show again'.
Tooth realised Pitch was talking about the Halloween Festival he had attended with Jack.
'I heard about that', she said, 'It sounded really amazing'.
'Well maybe once this debacle is over I might show you a trick or two', Pitch said with a mischievous smile, 'But right now, I finally feel like getting some sleep'.
'Will you show me before or after your revenge?' Tooth asked quietly.
Pitch looked at her. Her face was serious but she couldn't hide the hope in her eyes.
'I'm thinking about it', Pitch replied.
Tooth nodded understandingly and Pitch began to walk away.
'I'm just gonna finish this shelf and I'll head back to my room', Tooth said, 'Goodnight Pitch'.
Pitch nearly stopped dead. Nobody had ever said that to him before.
'Goodnight Tooth', he replied and left the library.