"I have to say, this is very, exciting."
Jack jumped. He knew that voice, he did! Where did he here it? He knew it, it was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't place it. He swore he knew that voice!
"The Big Four, all in one place. I'm a little star-struck." The tell-tale voice paused, continuing in a mocking tone. "Did you like my show on the globe, North? Got you all together, didn't I?"
The mockery in his voice, the know it all quality, like the voice was holding a piece of information he wanted just out of reach. Jack knew it all, he recognized it! How?
The Tooth Fairy interrupts, zooming up and threatening the voice that belongs to a man of shadows Jack can hardly see. Jack marvels at how the shadow seems unfazed, taunting her back in that voice that he knew.
He's staring, but he doesn't realize till that voice says his name. "-Jack Frost?"
He laughs, and Jack knows it. It's to cruel, to harsh, but he knows it.
Pitch pauses, catching sight of the confused frost child below him. Pitch knows that face from somewhere, that hair, those eyes. He can't place it, but it's important, and it's pestering him. He glances around, golden eyes flitting to each of the guardians. His eyes flick past the Tooth Fairy, and it clicks. The fearlings inside of him rear, trying to stop the inevitable outcome, but they've become weak. That's how he's even able to access the once buried memories. The fearlings try to stop it, but little snippets of memory rush towards him, demanding his attention, pulling at his grasp on his mind. His vision blurs, and he's pulled back into his own mindscape to watch scenes play out.
"'my name is Jack'"
"'it is like, stupid easy to hack into the 3d printer'"
"Hey so I upgraded myself and I have voice capabilities now!"
"Stop, ok just stop um, ok stop what you're doing I have the med droid on the way ok, Koz?"
"Kozmotis takes a few minutes to process the question. "No. No, robots are r-rubbish. I mean there's..." He coughs, wincing, "there are bioengineered bodies. Mostly used by the obscenely rich to give themselves a young new body to play in. It's a mix of robotic and biological, but works like a real body. I-It's v-very easy to download any system into one. Some people load AI's into them to use like a maid service." He has to pause to take a few deep breaths, biting down a sound when the shrapnel grinds against his ribs. "And fortunately for you, I have connections."
"I...wow really?"
"Promise." His breath is a soaked rasp and he can see the room blurring. "I think I'm dying." He says casually."
"Oh, that's the female needed to make a new meatbag right?"
"Why can't you say 'organic' like all the other computers?"
"I don't think it'll get easier for me."
"It wasn't hard." Jack says nastily. "Maybe they should have made the walls better."
"you're just as real as any of us."
"Did you know," he chokes out, tears in his eyes, "I failed nearly all of my programming classes when I was in school?"
"Fun fact," Jack says, and Kozmotis feels a chill of horrified dread at how pleased he sounds, "you can never fully delete anything."
"I said stop! I don't want you to! You can't make a copy of me!"
"He highlights them, feeling a bit silly, and changes the font to comic sans."
""Did you make a picture of yourself?" Kozmotis interrupts quietly."
""You know what I'd like to do now?" Kozmotis asks, voice cracked and hoarse.
"What?" Jack asks, attention focused.
"I'd very much like to hold you." Kozmotis says quietly."
"We can't BOTH last more than a day Koz!"
10%.
25%
35. 45. 55. 65. 77. 85. 90.
95%.
"He's Jack. He has a laugh that lights everything up, he's mischievous and troublesome and can't stand being bored. He'd rather play games than look at asteroids and likes shades of blue and ridiculous glittery fonts. He worries too much and can make rash decisions. He likes action movies and lives to get reactions from everything around him. He's Jack."
"Jack it's alright, it's alright, just breathe! You're ok, just calm down alright it's me! You're here I've got you."
"I love you."
"You can't have him, he's mine!"
"NO, stop!"
"You really like snow, don't you?"
"You actually downloaded more fonts?"
"He's not just a computer!"
"Kozzy?"
"Jack? Jack are you there?"
"Don't make him, please! I'll do anything, I'll be a guard, just don't make him!"
"Jack? How are you here?"
"I'm going to get you out of here, Koz, just wait, I have a plan, just hold on a little longer."
"Don't take him!"
"Koz!"
And he's pulled back to the waking world, and the Tooth Fairy has that confused look on her face. She can't tell what's happening, but she knows he got some memories, she knows, and he couldn't care less, because Jack is right there in front of him.
"Jack!"
His Jack.
"Jack-" He's barely aware of anything else, anything but the white haired boy. The boy who knows his secrets, the boy who he spent countless years with, traveled to countless planets, galaxies, stars. The boy he fought with. The boy he loved.
Jack.
He can feel himself running, can feel tears streaming down his face. It doesn't matter, nothing matters, not the guardians, not his plans, nothing except closing the too wide distance.
He's jerked back, halted. Golden ropes of sand are around his waist and hands. They burn, burn like a thousand suns on his grey skin, but it doesn't matter because they're keeping him from Jack!
"Let me go! Let me go! I have to get to him! I have to! He's Jack! My-my Jack! Please!" His voice is broken, he can practically feel the waves of confusion coming of the guardians, but Jack just stands there, looking confused and lost.
Jack knows him, and now the cruel sneer is gone from his voice, and it's replaced with pleading. This is Pitch Black, the boogeyman, and he's supposed to be fighting him. But his voice, his voice is so familiar, and he's got a look on his face, golden eyes blown wide with longing. Jack knows him, but he's never met him, not that he can remember. It's confusing, more confusing than any of his questions that were never answered, more confusing than the blank space in his mind is, because goddammit I know him!
Sandy has caught him, in chains of dreamsand, because obviously it looked like Pitch was trying to attack, sprinting towards Jack like that. But Jack knows that wouldn't happen, because he has an instinctual feeling that the shade would never hurt him.
Jack cautiously walks forward, Tooth crying out and trying to stop him but failing because she's already weak enough that he can push her arm off and dart away from her. He stills walks towards Pitch, wanting, no needing, answers to his questions for once.
"Who are you?" His voice is quiet, bordering on whispering, but he still approaches and looks Pitch in the eye from his bonds. "How do you know me? How do I know you?"
Pitch struggles with the bonds, tugging and pulling at the burning sand. "Jack, J-jack it's me, it's Koz, it's me, don't you re-remember? It's me, we spent that year in the ship, and I got you a body, that body, your body, Jack, and S-sn-nowflakes don't you remember? We- we went to Astori-astoria, and you loved the, you loved the snow, and you-you barely felt the cold. Jack, please, snow, you gotta remember. Remember for me, remember please jack I can't do-I c-c-can't do this-" His voice breaks of into sobs, still begging, still pleading, but Jack doesn't recognize anything he says. There's a tug in his brain when Pitch says Koz, but he can't remember, and he's trying so hard. The feeling of knowing has increased though, and the knowledge is just about to pop into his brain, but something is holding it back.
The sand bonds have dissolved, and Sandy is floating off the side with a slightly confused but hopeful look on his face. His sand is moving to fast above his head for anyone to translate, but the glare he sends the other guardians tell them not to get involved well enough. Tooth flutters down, her feet barely touching the ground. Bunny's tapping his foot nervously, accidentally creating small tunnels, his fingers itching to reach for boomerangs because 'they had Pitch right there and seemingly vulnerable let's just take care of him'. North is sitting back and watching. He trusts the Sandman and his decisions, but his hand is on the sword handle and he's ready to jump in if things get out of hand. They're all about 5 meters away, watching the scene between their enemy and their newest (unofficial) recruit.
As soon as he's released, Pitch leaps from his spot and tackles Jack in a hug. It's been to long and how did he forget, his jack, how could he forget his Jack, what happened to this, what caused this?
But Jack pushes him away, because Jack doesn't know.
"Ple-please J-jack I need you to, I need you to try and remember. Remember ok, remember me and then, then it'll all be ok jack, ok? Ju-just remember, please. Please. Jack please."
"I swear, I'm trying, I just can't, I'm trying I swear! Your there, I know you are, I know you, but I don't and I'm trying!"
"Jack, jack it's ok, it's ok. I'm-I'm going to try something, alright, snow? I'm gonna try something, and I'm going to hate it, but I'm going to try, ok? Ok, Jack?"
Jack hesitates, looking at the owner of the golden eyes that he recognizes. He shouldn't trust him, this is the guy they're supposed to be fighting, right? Right? But his voice is pleading with him, and he knows it, and he still has the feeling that hell would freeze over before this guy hurt him. * He muttered an ok, and Pitch takes a deep breath steadying himself because oh god he's going to hate this.
"Computer, run diagnosis of memory database and storage."
Jack feels his body stiffen, and something inside of him is moving, whirring, coming to life after being asleep. He can't move, and he starts to panic, but Pitch's words come back to him mind, and he suddenly has to follow the order given. Why? He didn't know. There's a feeling seizing him, and his mind suddenly, all to suddenly, stops for a second. He's shoved to the side, like he's watching from the sidelines in his own mindscape. Multiple images pop up, almost like millions of computer monitors flaring into existence. His brain is on auto-function, zooming in and focusing on a select few images, scrolling through lines and lines of code. He's watching, and suddenly he's not anymore. Suddenly he's the one looking through all the screens, all the images. It comes like instinct to him, and he's searching for something, and-
And there it is! It's a large file, almost too big to be in existence. He pities the people who made the tech to fit it, because dam it's huge. He 'clicks' on it, again driven by pure instinct, but then suddenly a warning flashes in his vision, blocking the screen and all content.
He feels his mouth moving before he even begins to know what to say. His voice sounds wrong, with monotone and almost robotic qualities to it.
"Warning, file content blocked. Firewall secure. Would you like to continue?"
He almost shakes his head in disgust, puts stops the ridiculous notion before he completes the action. He pulls the 'screen' down, and he can see Pitch again.
There's tears in his eyes, tears streaming down his face. Pitch thought he would never have to hear that voice again out of Jack's mouth, never have to see that blank look on his face again. He thought he had prepared himself, but the blankness of it all brought a sudden spike of fear throughout his body, causing one of his nightmares waiting in the shadows to come out and investigate. The irony.
His voice wavers as he says the next command.
"Computer" Oh how he hated using that word for Jack. "Access blocked content."
And Jack is pulling back up the screen, acting upon the command. The firewall blocks him, and he finds himself smirking to himself. He somehow knows he can do this. No matter how secure, he finds himself feeling he can hack it.
His fingers itch and tap as if they want to type out something. It's instinctual, like most of the last five minutes. He doesn't know where to start, so he lets his instincts take over, and begins typing the first line of code.
The firewall is harder to hack then he originally thought. It could be the fact that he, as Jack Frost, has never actually done this before.
Oh well. The firewall is broken within five minutes anyways.
And the content that was blocked?
Wow.
Memories of everything come back to him. The ship, the annoying rabbit, the pirates, the asteroid belt(he found himself wincing at the memory), the feeling of being trapped, the sensory overload of waking up, the asshole people who had poked at him, the trips to planets with Koz, the first snowball fight in existence(He was proud to say he started that), the war, and-and when Koz was taken away.
He saw himself, sneaking into the prison. It had been stupidly easy. He tried to save Koz, but-but he was too late.
He got there too late, and Koz was taken over by fearlings.
He saw the council of celestial beings, saw himself in their throne room. Saw them making plans. Send it to Earth, they said. Let it into a human family, they said. We'll see if it has feeling for ourselves, they said.
He saw them changing his hair. His eyes. His body that he had designed himself.
And then they sent him away.
He got to his human family, his memory disc wiped, his internet access restricted. And the rest is history.
And he exits the file, saving it in a remote location, throwing up half a million walls in a millisecond. His vision clears, and he's crying, he can feel the water freezing on his face, and he can see Pitch staring at him.
Pitch is watching him with bated breath, a kind of hope that he wants to deny sparking in his eyes. "J-jack?"
And Jack is in Pitch's arms, and they're sliding down to the floor, collapsing in a pile of limbs. They're clutching at each other, wanting to know that their real, they're here, they're together.
They don't pull back until Tooth's worried hand touches Jack's back, worried and confused. He pulls back from her, flinching away and almost hissing. He calms slightly when he sees the fairy pull back. His face is coated in the ice of his tears, droplets frozen on his eyelashes, cheeks, chin, clothes. He's trembling, and clutching Koz like a lifeline.
Koz because he couldn't exactly be called Pitch right now.
The gray color of his skin is melting away, going back to tan. His hair is getting less spiky, his eyes leaving behind the poisonous yellow tint they had. They're liquid pools of gold, and they're staring straight at Jack, not caring as shark teeth return to normal, as shadow robes melt off.
This isn't Pitch Black, this is Kozmotis Pitchiner. Kozmotis.
Koz.
And he is hugging Jack. Not Jack Frost, not Jackson Overland, just Jack.
Sandy reels Tooth back in with a rope of dreamsand and puts another one over the other guardians.
He makes a sign of a shushing finger, then a pair of eyes, then two figures hugging.
Shh. Watch the reunion.
And so, the guardians watch. Watch the two figures hug, watching even still as Jack pulls back and cries harder.
"Shh." Koz comforts, running a shaky thumb under his eye to catch the tears before they froze. "It's ok, it's fine, we've-we've got each other now."
Jack still sobs. "It's not! I didn't get there, I didn't save you, I was to late! Years of hacking, years of breaking into things, and I was still too late!"
"It's ok, we're gonna be fine. It's ok, snow, we've got this. It isn't your fault, it never was, ok? Snow, I opened the door, and that wasn't my fault. It's the armies fault Jack, ok? Not yours, not mine, theirs. But their gone, and they can't bother us now, and we can go, ok? We can build a ship. We can build one to get to Galizar, and then we'll get proper materials, and we'll make our own house in a good ship, and then we'll travel, ok? We'll go anywhere we want. We can, Jack, we can do this, we can do this together."
Jack mumbles a shaky 'ok' and buries his head in Koz's chest.
"Hey Koz?" he mutters, the sound muffled in the generals tattered, torn shirt, nearly ten minutes of half broken sobs later.
"Yea, Snow?"
"Don't ever do that to me again, you asshole of a meatbag."
"Don't worry, Jack." He mutters into his hair. "I will never let them take us apart again."
The Guardians don't ask who "them" is, even among their hundreds of questions later at the Pole.