—Y/n—
Jack tries to lay a sleeping Sophie down in her bed, but she won't let go of his neck. Finally, she releases her grasp, only to roll over and fall out of bed. Baby Tooth gives Jack a scornful look. Y/n was trying to contain her laughter.
Why'd she fall like that?
"Sophie? Is that you?"
Jack and Y/n's eyes widen; their little companions freeze. Sophie, asleep on the floor, is quickly covered with a blanket and given a squeaky stuffed animal.
——
Jack holds Y/n hand to help her out of the window and onto her cloud. He closes the window and looks to Baby Tooth with a sign of relief.
"We should get back." The girls nod.
"Good idea."
"Jack..."
"That voice, I know that voice." Jack stops, confused. Where is that voice coming from? He looks out across the town, toward the woods, and the sound of the echoed voice. Baby Tooth looks to him, worried.
"Jack, what voice?" Y/n looks towards the woods, trying to hear what he heard.
"Jack..." With that, Jack leaps off the window ledge.
"Hey! Jack, wait up!" Y/n races after him on her cloud, pain running though her hands.
——
Jack, carried by the wind, flies across town toward the sound of the eerie voice. Y/n and the girls follow, trying to keep up. Jack takes a moment to orient himself and lands, settling on a rotating vent; as the momentum slowly spins him around, the voice calls out to him again.
"Jack..." Jack turns, looks to the woods, and takes off.
"Ugh! Seriously?" Just when she thought he'd stop.
——
Jack and the girls land in the middle of a thickly wooded area. It's spooky. Jack scans the forest when again he hears...
"Jack..."
Jack gives chase. He sprints through the thickets and enters a clearing only to find the decrepit remains of a rotting frame from a child's bed. Very creepy. What would that be doing in the woods, and how long has it been here?
"Jack, come on, we have to get back. Besides, this place is creepy, let's go." Y/n tries tugging him away. She didn't like the vibes here.
"Don't worry, there's still time." Baby Tooth desperately tries to get Jack's attention by tugging at his tunic, and tweeting desperately. Jack takes his staff and breaks through the damaged frame, revealing a hole leading deep underground.
"Jack..."
What to do? Jack jumps down the hole.
"Jack!" Y/n reluctantly jumps too, followed by Baby Tooth and Little Star.
——
Jack and Y/n continue along a long, dark tunnel with their little companions, hugging each other close behind. Eventually, the labyrinth opens up to reveal a huge underground cavern. Y/n continues to tug at Jack's tunic.
"Jack, listen to me. Please. We have to go."
"Y/n, N/n... come on!" Jack waves her off. "I have to find out what that is." Jack can't believe his eyes. Y/n turns to see what he's looking at and gasps.
Dozens of huge bird cages hanging from the ceiling, and in them are the mini tooth fairies and Starlings. They see Jack and Y/n, and immediately perk up, tweeting and flitting like crazy. Jack jumps up onto one cage, then quickly leaps and holds onto the side of another one. Y/n flies up to one and try's breaking the lock.
"Won't budge."
"Shhhh! keep it down." Jack leaps to another cage. "We're gonna get you out of here, just as soon as we-"
"Jack..."
Jack turns away from the fairies, distracted. Y/n is still fiddling with the cage she first went up to.
"Jack..."
"As we can-" Jack looks down and sees the tooth drawers from Tooth's Palace. Mounds of them heaped to the ceiling. And inside the drawers are the missing baby teeth. On the opposite side lay all the scrolls stolen from Star City.
He drops to a mound and begins rummaging through the drawers, looking at the names on the boxes. In an instant he forgets his duties, and the fairies, and the Guardians and everything except those teeth, and the chance to finally get his memory back. The cavern suddenly goes darker than it already was.
—Jack—
Jack finally looks up, as a shadow of Pitch crawls up a nearby column.
"Looking for something?"
Jack swings around with his staff, shooting off a blast of ice, but Pitch isn't there. Jack takes off, following the sound of Pitch's cackle as it echoes throughout the chamber. Jack rounds a corner as he sees Pitch's shadow glide across the walls into a shadowed corridor.
"Don't be afraid, Jack. I'm not going to hurt you."
Jack continues along a shadowed corridor.
"Afraid?" Jack sees Pitch on a bridge across the cavern and heads after him. "I'm not afraid of you!"
"Maybe not. But you are afraid of something."
"You think so, huh?" Jack steadily approaches, cautious and alert.
"I know so. It's the one thing I always know." Pitch finally turns to face Jack. "People's greatest fears. Yours is that no one will ever believe in you."
Panic flashes in Jack's eyes. As he backs away, the chamber fills with shadows, and Jack is spun around. He's disoriented as he thuds into a wall, which flips to reveal that it's actually the ground. Pitch, unseen now, chuckles. Jack's unsure of where he is. He looks back to see the cavern entrance. He's right back where he started.
"And worst of all, you're afraid you'll never know why. Why you? Why were you chosen...to be like this?"
Jack discovers that the entrance has been blocked with bricks as Pitch's shadow encroaches on him.
"Well, fear not, for the answer to that." Pitch is now directly in front of Jack, holding out a tooth box. "Is right here."
Jack's eyes widen at the sight, the face of a young boy etched into the box, and under it is the name 'Jack Frost.'
"Do you want them, Jack? Your memories?" He holds them out to Jack. Jack stares, fighting the impulse to grab them. He closes his eyes, struggling to decide, but when he opens them again, Pitch has disappeared.
Pitch's shadow moves across the pillars of the cavern. Jack heads down a corridor, cast shadows from the Mini Tooth cages everywhere.
"Everything you wanted to know..." Pitch's face moves in and out of the shadows over the following. "...in this little box." Every time Jack turns, Pitch disappears. It's like Jack's trapped in a fun house.
"Why did you end up like this? Unseen. Unable to reach out to anyone." Multiple Pitch shadows have appeared on the wall around Jack. They're closing in on him. "You want the answers so badly. You want to grab them and fly off with them. But you're afraid of what the Guardians will think. What she will think."
Jack's breath quickens. He's been pushed into a corner.
"You're afraid of disappointing them. Well, let me ease your mind about one thing. They'll never accept you. She'll never love you. Not really." The shadows have overcome Jack.
"Stop it! Stop it!" Jack try's to scramble away. Almost reluctantly, the shadows back away and Pitch appears before Jack.
"After all, you're not one of them."
"You don't know what I am!" Jack aims his staff at Pitch
"Of course I do. You're Jack Frost. You make a mess wherever you go. Why, you're doing it right now." Pitch tosses the box to Jack, who instinctively catches it. Jack looks up. Terror comes into Jack's eyes, as he realizes...
"What did you do?"
"More to the point, Jack, what did you do? Leaving a girl all alone and defenseless, how chivalrous." Pitch backs away, becoming one with the darkness, laughing as he disappears. Jack charges towards him, only to be swallowed whole by one of Pitch's black holes. He's sent into another labyrinth.
—Y/n—
"Jack, they won't budge. There's gotta be something we can use to bust them open." Y/n gradually getting more and more annoyed when he didn't respond. "Jack, seriou-" She turned to find no one there. Even Baby tooth and Little Star were gone.
"Jack?" No response.
"Baby Tooth?" No response.
"Star?" No response.
Y/n gets paranoid as the mini Tooth Fairies and her Starlings cause a fuss.
"Don't worry I'll-"
"Ah, abandonment, glorious, isn't it?" Y/n turned to see Pitch looming over her. He had gotten stronger. She could feel it. She felt something for him she hadn't in a very long time. Fear. Y/n took steps back as Pitch proceeded forward, a grin spread across his face.
She bolted, only to get lost in his labyrinth, forced to listen to his echoing voice.
"I know what you fear. Your nightmares, what keeps you awake."
"Screw off!" Y/n paused, looking left and right, deciding which way to go.
"The guardians will never see you as more than just that, a guardian. They don't care for you." She tried to tone his voice out, focusing on getting out of this maze.
"They're just using you. You make their jobs easier. I mean, the one thing that revolves around children is wishes." There were paths all around her. They each had a guardian standing in them, including Jack, made from the Black Sand. "Who better to have on their side than the guardian of wishes herself?"
"You still haven't told them, have you?" Y/n shakes her head and runs down a path, straight through the figure of Sandman. "You might as well just give up. You're going to turn to dust soon, anyway." She clutched her forearm that had been bitten. By now her hands were pitch black and it was creeping to her wrists.
Maybe he's right.
"Pitch!" She'd had enough. Angered beyond belief, the pain in her arms was not helping. "Come out here and fight! You robe wearing, no eyebrow having, brittle hair, long nosed, Coward!"
Y/n couldn't see anything anymore. Everything was...
pitch black.
—Jack—
Jack flies out of Pitch's shadow, ready to strike. Suddenly, Jack realizes he's alone.
No. Please, no.
"Y/n!" He turns to re-enter the hole in the wall, only to find himself face to face with one of Bunny's stone emblems.
"Happy Easter, Jack." Jack turns around. Suddenly, his eyes fill with dread as he realizes where he is. Thousands of broken egg shells lay strewn about, forming a path toward the light at the end of the tunnel.
"No."
—Guardians—
Bunny peaks through the bushes to take in the scene an Easter Egg hunt.
"There are no eggs." "There's none anywhere. I give up." "Come on, let's go." "I don't understand." Bunny checks the eggs in his basket, then looks back toward the kids. "Maybe he just hid them really well this year."
"Kids! Oi!" Bunny, egg basket in hand, approaches a group of kids who seem to wander around searching halfheartedly, disappointed and listless.
"I checked everywhere! There's nothing!"
"Yes, there is! There is! I mean, these aren't my best lookin' googies, but they'll do in a pinch!" He steps towards them and holds out a broken Easter egg. The kids just stare.
"I can't believe it."
"I know."
"There's no such thing as the Easter Bunny." The girl turns to leave.
"What?"
"Easter's over. Forget this." It's only then that he realizes he's too late. The spark of childhood has already been extinguished in all of them.
"No! Wrong! Not not true! I'm right in front of ya, mate!"
"There's no such thing. I know." The kids walk through Bunnymund as if he were a ghost. Bunny is stunned by this, and finally realizes. "Now come on." "I don't understand. Why wouldn't he come?" "Let's get out of here." "Easter Bunny, where are you?" "This is the worst Easter ever."
"They don't see me. They don't see me."
Jacks watching this all unfold and it's heartbreaking, because he knows it's his fault. Tooth flies to Bunny's side. Jack hears a rustle in the bushes behind him.
"Jack, where were you?" Jack sees North, with his scimitars drawn and having just come from battle. He's exhausted, wild-eyed, distraught. "The Nightmares attacked the tunnels. They smashed every egg, crushed every basket. Nothing made it to the surface."
"Jack!" Tooth rejoins the group from off screen. "Where did you get that?" Jack looks down at the tooth box in his hand, then back to Tooth.
"I was...it's..."
"Where's Y/n? Where's Baby Tooth? Oh Jack, what have you done?" Tooth jumped to the worst conclusion. It didn't help that Little Star came flying out of nowhere, looking disheveled, instantly cuddling into Tooth for comfort.
"That is why you weren't here?" North steps forward to confront Jack. "You were with Pitch?"
"No, listen, listen... I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen."
"He has to go." Jack turns to see Bunny, disheartened.
"What?"
"We should never have trusted you! Easter is new beginnings, new life. Easter is about hope. And now it's gone." Bunny turns away and moves toward the park, looking at the sign that reads, 'Easter Egg Hunt.' As the Pooka looks on, he grieves Y/n silently, thinking she suffered the same fate as her best friend.
This is like a punch in Jack's gut. He looks back to Tooth and North, both of whom look away, too hurt by Jack. They're already planning another ceremony, for Y/n this time, they'd lost hope.
He looks at them with a pained expression. This is exactly what Pitch said would happen.
Jack reaches into his pocket, pulls out the tiny Russian nesting doll that North had given him, drops the doll to the ground, and takes off. As Jack leaves, carried off by the wind, leaving the tiny Russian nesting doll to lie on the ground.
—Jamie—
Jamie, atop a ladder, strains for what looks like an Easter egg, hiding in the rain gutter. The ladder totters and Jamie loses his balance, beginning to fall.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa... aaaah!" Jamie grabs the gutter, but it breaks loose, sending Jamie crashing down into a mound of snow. As Jamie gets up off the ground, he sees the Easter egg was, in fact, a dirty old tennis ball. Jamie stands up, bewildered, and dusts himself off as his friends laugh. A few have empty Easter baskets. "Let's check the park again."
"Really?" "For what, the Easter Bunny?"
"Guys, I told you - I saw him! He's way bigger than I thought, and he's got these cool boomerang-things-"
"Grow up, Jamie." "Ah man, seriously."
"What's happened to you guys?"
"It was a dream. You should be happy you still get dreams like that and not..." They turn away from him. "Nightmares."
"Forget it, Jamie. There's just no Easter this year." Pippa's the lone straggler. She looks tired, depressed, and hands Jamie her basket as she leaves.
"I can't believe this."
"Amada, come on, you have to believe me. Please. He really is real!" Jamie grabs her hand, giving her his best pleading look. She just sighs, giving him a small forced smile before walking away, trailing the others. Jamie doesn't know what to believe. He hangs his head and looks into the Easter basket. It's empty.
"I know he is."
—Jack—
Jack runs to the edge of a floating iceberg, ready to throw his tooth box into the ocean. He resists, looking down at the box as he clutches it in his hand. He's never been more alone in his life.
"I thought this might happen." Pitch is revealed, standing not far behind Jack. "They never really believed in you. I was just trying to show you that. But I understand."
Jack whips around and shoots a burst of frost at Pitch, but it's quickly deflected by the Nightmare sand.
"You don't understand anything!" Jack continues to attack, lashing out with his staff. Pitch blocks the attacks of ice and frost. His control over the Nightmare sand has gained considerable strength.
Where is she?
"No? I don't know what it's like to be cast out?" Pitch strikes back, putting Jack on the defense. Jack jumps in the air. Their show of force escalates until they're shrouded in a blanket of snow, ice, and wind. As the wind and snow settle, Jack looks around, stern and alert. "To not be believed in. To long for a family."
Jack turns around to find Pitch. There's a look of compassion on Jack's face as he listens.
"All those years in the shadows, I thought, no one else knows what this feels like. But now I see I was wrong." They lock eyes. A moment of true connection between them. "We don't have to be alone, Jack." This isn't a trick Pitch is making a real offer here. "I believe in you. And I know children will too."
"In me?"
"Yes! Look at what we can do!" Pitch gestures to a fantastical ice and nightmare 'sculpture' that was created when Jack attacked him. "What goes together better than cold and dark?" Jack looks at the fractured reflections of themselves cast in the icy sculpture. "We can make them believe. We'll give them a world where everything, everything is-"
"Pitch black-" Jack deadpans, turning to face Pitch.
"And Jack Frost too. They'll believe in both of us." Pitch, realizing how this looks, clarifies. Jack stares at him, considering the offer.
"No, they'll fear both of us. And that's not what I want." Jack turns and walks away. "Now, for the last time, leave me alone."
Pitch looks confused and hurt. This is not the response he was expecting. Then his eyes flame with anger. He made himself vulnerable, and Jack rejected him. No more negotiating.
"Very well. You want to be left alone? Done. But first..."
Suddenly, Jack hears a familiar twitter. Pitch reaches into his coat to pull out...
"Baby Tooth!" Jack charges forward. There's terror in Baby Tooth's eyes. She squeaks as Pitch clenches her tight with his fist. That's not all Pitch had up his sleeve.
"Jack.." Y/n emerged from a cloud of black sand. He was using her to block Jack's attack. The staff clad boy stopped before he could make impact, immediately reaching out to her, but Pitch pulled her back. Both her arms are pitch black, the darkness making its way to her shoulders.
"The staff, Jack."
"Jack, don't." Jack settles and the winds and snow subside.
"You have a bad habit of interfering. Now hand it over. And I'll let them go." Baby Tooth twitters struggling to get loose, but Pitch only tightens his grip. She can hardly breathe, Y/n clenches her teeth seeing this.
Jack has no choice. Jack hands over the staff. The staff seemed lifeless upon touching Pitch's hand. Pitch twirls the staff.
"Alright, now let them go."
"No. You said you wanted to be alone. So be alone!" Baby Tooth squirms until she's finally able to peck Pitch in the hand with her beak. Pitch shrieks, in his moment of distraction Y/n strikes, elbowing him in the gut, turning to blast him with an asteroid. Pitch grates his teeth and uses his sand to see the girls in the air and down into the mouth of a crevasse.
Y/n grabs Baby Tooth, holding her close, before they hit the ground.
"No!" Jack, enraged, can't believe what he's seeing. Pitch lifts the staff and breaks it over his knee, cracking it in two. Light explodes from the staff and terror comes into Jack's eyes, clutching his chest as if in pain.
Suddenly, Pitch sends a burst of Nightmare sand, blasting Jack and slamming him into the iceberg wall behind him. As the ice cracks, Jack comes loose and falls forward into the chasm below.
Pitch looks down into the ice fissure, chuckling. He throws the broken shards of Jack's staff down into the crevasse and casually walks away, disappearing on the horizon.
——
It's cold and dark down here, and Jack is more alone than he's ever been. Battered from the fall, Jack slowly looks up and notices Y/n, holding Baby Tooth, lying lifelessly on the ground. The little fairy is cuddling into her for warmth.
"Y/n!" He pulls himself to her and cradles her in his arms.
"You alright?" Y/n nods, but she's hurt and cold. By now, the darkness is up to her collarbones. Jack does his best to shield her from the cold. "Sorry, all I can do is keep you cold." Jack sits up and sits Y/n in his lap, wrapping his arms securely around her.
"Its perfectly fine." Y/n does her best to summon her cloud to wrap around them. "You left." She closes her eyes, leaning into him. She forgave him, but it still hurt. There was a lot to think about when one was stuck in nothing but darkness.
"Pitch was right. I make a mess of everything." It devastated Jack. Y/n's never seen him like this. She and Baby Tooth give each other a look; it's heartbreaking, then the little fairy gets a thought. Her expression hardens with determination. She leaves Y/n's warm embrace and wriggles deep into Jack's pocket.
"Hey?" Jack leans back and closes his eyes when he hears...
"Jack... Jack..."
He feels something. There's a soft, golden glow coming from his pocket. Y/n backs away before Jack jumps, taken aback. He reaches in and pulls out the tooth box. It's pulsing with light. Y/n's seen this before, it's his memories.
"Jack..."
Both Y/n and Baby Tooth give him a reassuring look. Baby Tooth motions to the box, then looks back at Jack. Jack reaches to touch the box, but as he does, its top magically unfolds to reveal a handful of baby teeth. Then the box and everything else glows bright with intense light. The walls of the fissure seem to suddenly fall away.
——
Children running playfully down a hill in a colonial settlement.
"Come on, Jack, you can't have fun all the time." Children's laughing faces as a familiar boy hangs upside down from a tree limb.
"Jack, get down from there!" A happy family at a roaring fire as the same boy jokes around with antlers on his head.
"You're funny, Jack."
~~
Jack walks toward the woods with his sister. His mother, face unseen, calls out to him.
"Be careful."
"We will." Jack shakes his head like he's heard it a million times but never pays it any mind.
~~
A familiar eye. It's brown, not blue. The image pulls back to reveal young Jack, brown hair, brown eyes. He is staring directly forward, a look of... what is it? It's hard to read, but it's very intense. He is dressed in 16th century clothes. Behind him, dark winter trees and snow come in to focus.
"It's okay. It's okay. Don't look down, just look at me." Jack reaches slowly down and removes the second of two rudimentary ice-skates, leaving him barefoot on the surface of a familiar frozen pond. A girl of about four, with an uncanny resemblance to Jamie's sister Sophie, stands in her skates, rooted to the spot. A spider's web of cracks emanates from where she stands.
"Jack, I'm scared." The ice below her splinters more. She wobbles as it separates.
"I know, I know... but you're gonna be alright. You're not gonna fall in. We're gonna have a little fun instead."
"No, we're not!"
"Would I trick you?"
"Yes! You always play tricks!" Jack's sister is panicking.
"Well, alright. Well not, not this time. I promise. I promise, you're gonna be- you're gonna be fine." Jack fixes her gaze, holds it. There's nothing but the two of them. "You have to believe in me."
Jack's sister pauses a moment, then smiles through her fear. And just like that, Jack's demeanor changes. A light is switched on inside him and the last thing that could happen is what is actually happening.
"You wanna play a game? We're going to play Hopscotch! Like we play every day!" Jack's sister looks more reassured. "It's as easy as one- whoa..." And Jack shows his sister the first leap, but mugs for her, almost losing his balance then catching himself. She laughs.
"Two..." Next jump.
"Three!" He turns toward her with his arms spread out. "Alright..." He reaches down to pick up a familiar-looking stick lying on the ice. He extends it towards her. "Now it's your turn." Jack's sister looks down. She is trying to gather her courage.
Jack, never breaking his gaze with her, "One..." She hops, wobbling, but catching her balance.
"That's it, that's it... two..." She's almost there, Jack's staff just beyond her reach.
"Three." She grabs hold of Jack's staff and, in one massive effort, he slings her with all his might to safety. But the movement propels him into the cracked ice. He looks up to see his sister safe, smiles and then plunges into the dark, cold water.
"Whoa..."
"Jack!" Jack falls back into the icy water. SPLASH!
The full Moon appears from behind the clouds as Jack's hands claw through the water towards it, but it's helpless. The Moon glows bright... brighter... Jack's body glows, bathed in moonlight. Push in on his face, becoming brighter and brighter until his brown hair turns white and Jack's bright blue eyes flash open...
——
The icy walls rush back in as Jack is pulled reeling from the memory. He sees Y/n, who is staring back at him curiously.
"Did you- did you see that?"
"Uh, no." Y/n turns to Baby Tooth, silently asking her. She shakes her head 'no', tweets 'of course not'!
"It- it was me! I had a family! I had a sister!" His excitement suddenly turns to realization. "I saved her!" He looks up at the opening above. The Moon peeks out from behind the clouds. "That's why you chose me." He whispers up to Manny. "I'm, I'm a Guardian." Y/n turns to give the Moon a smile. He finally accepted his destiny.
The Moon seems to shine a little brighter. Baby Tooth tries to take flight, but she sputters and lands back in the palm of Jack's hand.
"We have to get out of here." Jack looks down at the two halves of his staff and picks them up. He tries to fit them back together, but nothing happens.
"Try harder. Imagine your energy flowing into in then back to you. Like a cycle." Y/n encouraged.
He tries again, this time using every ounce of strength left in him. Baby Tooth watches, her eyes widening as a spark of blue light shoots off the staff. Jack continues to push until the icy blue light spreads and melds the two ends of the staff back together. Jack smiles.
"Yes! You did it!"
Jack, with his arms around Y/n and Baby Tooth tucked safely in his tunic, shoots up out of the fissure, high into the sky and through the clouds.
"Come on, girls! I owe you one."
~~ Behind the Scenes ~~
∆ Little Star was the most amused at seeing Sophie fall off the bed
∆ Jack notices how Y/n's hands/arms are starting to become weaker
∆ If he could, Pitch would most definitely turn Y/n evil; that's not happening don't worry
∆ Everyone thinks Y/n is dead, except of course Jack and Baby Tooth
∆ Y/n going down Sandy's path is meant to be intentional; deeper meanings and shit like that
∆ Y/n had full intentions of yelling at Jack when they'd reunite from the labyrinth; but seeing as she was captured and held in the dark place for a while, she thought against it; Forgiveness is key, or something like that