Pitch was drawn to Jack's lake by a very potent fear. A fear that was sleeping inside the Winter Spirit even now.

But when he looked closer, it was not Jack Frost that he saw curled at the base of one of the surrounding trees. It was Pippa. She was crying, begging for someone to leave her brother alone. For a moment the Boogeyman thought that one of Jack's lynch mob had caught him and were torturing him while she watched. Closer examination revealed that the girl was alone, trapped in a memory. A bad one from the racket of her tortured wimperings.

"Uncle Nigel please stop! You'll KILL him!"

Ah, a domestic dispute then. Well that was hardly surprising, given the time that the two Overlands grew up in. Whippings were common, and Pitch was hardly surprised that Jack had received a few.

"Pippa!"

Speak of the rat...

The little girl threw her arms around her brother's neck, sobbing. He hugged her and whispered something in her ear that made her nod, then he sat cross-legged on the lake, while she curled on his lap.

"I had a memorymare about your switching again. The one where you took the branch for me at the Edwards."

"Another one hmm?" her brother tisked, rubbing his back in rememberance "That one wasn't fun was it?"

"Jack!" She scolded him lightly "None of your beatings were FUN! Especially the ones you didn't deserve!"

"But that rounds it down to almost all of them." He snickered morbidly "Father never switched me unless I actually deserved it. Unless I put myself or you in danger, wich I almost never did. Scratch that." He laughed "I NEVER put you in danger."

"Well there was the grizzly incident..."

"Wich was hardly my fault!"

"You shot down a HIVE on the poor bear's HEAD! How was that NOT your fault, Jackie?"

"He was the one under the tree!"

She laughed as he tickled her, the terror from earlier easily forgotten. Pitch snorted. Jack Frost was the Guardian of Fun for a reason after all. He was about to turn and leave when the fear spiked again, drawing him in to listen again.

"I sensed him, you know. Uncle Nigel."

Jack wrapped her tightly against his chest

"He's centuries dead, Pip. He won't come for us any more."

She curled against his chest, his cold surprisingly comforting. "You're centuries dead too, big brother." She sleepily answered.

"Yeah, and on the off chance he is a spirit like us, know that I will protect you just like I have always done. I swear by MiM, by Winter, by the very breath that still somehow exists in my body, that he will not lay one finger on you."

Pippa giggled sleepily, and clutched his middle, her soft brown eyes closing as she began to fall asleep in the comforting safety of her older brother's embrace.

"I know."