Author's Note: To the three people who followed an officially completed fic - you're right. It's not done. Here's the second chapter.
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I love you.
The words echo on and on in her mind, warm but unbearably distant. Thinking of its speaker keeps her awake most nights, his face appearing unbidden in her mind and despite everything, she aches to see it again. Almost unconsciously, her hand reaches up to touch the slight discoloration lingering on her neck; though they have long stopped stinging, she winces.
She still dreams of hands – his hands – choking her. And she reminds herself of it, in her weakest moments, when the silence is almost too great for her to see through. When the world is dark and gloomy and the fog rises so high and so thick she can no longer breathe, she reminds herself of why she cannot go back.
This is his love.
This is his devotion.
The bruises are damningly final: she will never go back. Not even for Henrik.
Poor, poor Henrik. He was such a good child, one of her favorites – yet, perhaps that is why Elson chose him out of all the innocent children. Henrik has no future … and it's all her fault.
She covers her face and weeps, safe in the knowledge that she will always go unheard.
Jack Frost, after all, is only a saying.
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She takes everything day by day.
It's an old method of hers, to live for today without thinking about tomorrow. Now, she clings to it and hopes that the hurt will fade with time as she travels the world, spreading frost and fun to all the little children – and even some haggard-looking adults. She laughs, she plays, the invisible friend to all the young ones. Sometimes, she nips them on the nose, but that is a very rare thing. She laughs and plays and tries pretending for her own sake that no hurt feelings – not even the smallest – rise up whenever they talk on and on – and on – about the Guardians. It's always "Santa Claus this" or "Easter Bunny that" or even "the tooth fairy visited me!"
Sometimes, Jack thinks she hates the Guardians. Well … maybe 'hate' is too strong a word. 'Resents'. Yes, that's better. She resents the Guardians, even if only a little bit.
But they protect children and that is enough for her not to hate them outright. Jack isn't naïve – she knows the world is dangerous, knows that not every kindly-faced stranger is what they might seem. People, she knows now, have many faces, not all of them kind.
Her heart hurts; it's been so long since she's talked to anyone, anyone at all. But she touches her neck and slinks back into the forest to settle on a thick tree branch for the rest of the night.
It is cruel, she thinks to herself, to learn what company is and then have to do without it.
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It's a harsh winter and, for some reason or other, some of the children in the town have gone missing. Jack, along with their worried relatives, search the regular play areas for them but when nothing shows up, she ventures deep into the heart of the forest. She searches high and low, leaving no stone unturned or cave unexplored. Still, they are nowhere to be found.
Children continue to disappear, one by one, and the people begin to panic. Jack thinks of Elson and a shiver slides down her spine. But he is far, far away in the north, lurking somewhere in the depths of his palace. She can't imagine him venturing so far out into the world even though she knows that he must, when she remembers his library and the materials in his workroom. Still, why would he come here? There's nothing in this town.
…Jack is in this town.
The small hairs on the back of her neck stand on end at the thought. Surely, he wouldn't; he had let her go, when he could have easily killed her or … kept her instead. He wouldn't just start looking for Jack, would he? And not like this, making children disappear to get her attention. Surely he wouldn't stoop as low as that.
But she thinks of Henrik and decides that, yes, he just might.
In the end, it's only by chance that she sees it happen.
It's a man – not even a great, mean-looking grizzly of a man; in the right light, Jack can easily admit that he would probably even look rather decent. At the very least, it's not Elson and a great weight rolls off her shoulders.
Unfortunately, he isn't Elson.
It's dusk, the streets are clear, and no matter what Jack does, she can't stop him from grabbing yet another child – little Laura with her golden hair, who loves kittens and Jack's snow days – and throwing her into a large burlap sack. Jack hits him with her shepherd's staff, screaming and yelling at him, but nothing works. Eventually, she follows him into a shady-looking cabin a very good distance away from town that Jack had just looked over some days ago. She warily hovers around the man as he uncovers a cleverly-hidden passageway beneath the flooring and they go down into a spacious basement where everything is pitch black - until he lights the furnace.
They're all there. Horribly, they have been hung from hooked extended down from the ceiling by large, thick chains, like great slabs of meat. They stare at Jack with unseeing eyes, still afraid. Still frightened.
Jack's screams go unheard. Her heart races as a cold sweat breaks out on her skin and she balls her fists and pummels the man methodically placing an unconscious Laura onto a metal table. Despair rises with the pitch of her voice and she is screaming, screaming, screaming at him to stop, please just stop.
Laura's shrill voice mingles with Jacks as her blood drips onto the floor. And Jack is helpless, Jack cannot do anything because she is not real she is only a saying, only a chill in the air and frost on the windows. She covers her eyes with pale, thin fingers and watches through the cracks.
Laura screams.
Laura struggles.
Laura dies.
And Jack shatters.
The entire room's temperature drops below and the man swears in alarm as even the hearty fire in the furnace dies. His eyes dart around the room, his pupils shrinking at the sight of icicles fast growing right before his eyes. He is, Jack realizes suddenly, the son of one of the town officials. A supposedly trustworthy figure. Who would ever suspect this man of murder?
Something hot and ugly floods through Jack's veins as she watches the man hurriedly tries to escape the room only to find that the door has been frozen shut. Still, he tries and in his frenzy, snaps the handle off. He swears, panicking, begging God for mercy.
Jack snaps a particularly sharp icicle off the ceiling and flies towards him.
Laura's screams still ring in her ears as she sinks the icicle deep into his shoulder.
She feels Elson's hands on her neck as she pulls her weapon out and swings it down onto his face.
She remembers Henrik, fearful and alone in a cold ice palace so far away from his own home and she buries the icicle deeper.
The man's eyes dim as empty words of affection echo in her mind.
I love you.
You are so lovely.
You're everything to me.
IloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyou
She stabs him until he is dead and then she stabs him some more. Jack's voice turns raw and she realizes that she hasn't stopped screaming since she's stepped into this horrid room. She sits on top of the man, now dead, and stares into his eyes, forever frozen in fear – just like Laura, like Henrik, like all the little children in this awful room.
There is blood on Jack's hands but she doesn't mind that as she undoes the straps around Laura's corpse. Carefully, she lifts the children off the hooks and carries them to the doorstep of their respective homes. Laura's body is still warm as Jack holds her, but there's nothing she can do, not even weep. It seems that her tears have been all used up and her eyes are shamefully dry.
Bitterly, she notes how she can only touch people once they've died.
"I am so sorry," she whispers as she lays Laura down on the front step of her house. She plants a tender kiss on every dead child's forehead just before she leaves them and returns to the cabin.
Jack crouches down on the floor and tilts her head, wondering at the murderer's corpse. What will she do with it? Hang it up on the tree? Drop it off at his father's house with a note? Burn it? What will she do? His father is an authority figure and she doesn't know what to expect from him. Will he cover up his son's wrongdoings?
She rubs the bridge of her nose before remembering that her hands are still covered in blood.
"You are a headache," she tells the corpse petulantly. "And I hate you." She takes in a deep breath, adding, "I hate what you did to all those children. I hate you. I hate you." And somehow, saying the words is a relief, even if only a small one. "…I hate you."
She leaves the body in the cabin basement, making sure to carefully cover up its entrance before leaving.
She never goes back.
Jack watches the aftermath of return of the children's bodies. The town is in an uproar and they organize a manhunt for the perpetrator as well as a search for the missing man. One day, maybe someone will find the murderer's corpse. Someday, perhaps the truth will be found. And maybe today is that day, given the vehemence of the crowd, but Jack doesn't stick around to find out. She flies far away from the town as soon as she ascertains that all the parents have found their missing children.
Eventually, she remembers to wash the now-dry blood off herself. She does her best to wash it out of her clothes as well but it isn't easy and much of the stains still remain.
Jack doesn't feel much better but she doesn't feel worse, either. Maybe this is how she will always be. But the world has just become a safer place, even if by just a little. The children in the town are safer now – should be safer now, at least. She has made it so.
And, despite everything, she smiles.
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Author's Note: After publishing the first chapter, I realized that the story might have had more a lot more impact if Jack had actually died. But I'd published it already and thought 'well, it's out. What to do...' And so, I began writing a second chapter. And I'm thinking of a third, to give a sort of closure to the entire fic. I'm still debating whether I should kill off Jack or Elson - or both. Or neither.
Reviews are greatly appreciated. Also, I'm genuinely curious: would anyone like to see one - or both - of them die? Or do you think they should still get back together and somehow achieve happily ever after?