RotG - A Bitter Frost - 17

Pitch had disappeared without a trace and left us standing on the grassy hills by the pond over which hung the mural of me and the children of the world. Without a present enemy to fuel my anger, sorrow came over me again and I sunk to my knees on the grass. "Okay, alright, I admit it. You were right about Pitch," Bunny was saying to North, and as North replied, Jack squatted down next to me.

"I'm sorry about the fairies," he said quietly. Even all of the confused feelings I had about Jack couldn't break through how lost I felt, even though this was probably the most sincere I'd ever heard him - Jack Frost - sound.

"You should've seen them," I said, trying to smile as Baby Tooth hovered in front of me, trying to cheer me up. "They put up such a fight."

Baby Tooth then darted over to Jack, hovering near his face and chirping. "Why would Pitch take the teeth?" Jack asked.

"It's not the Teeth he wanted," I said, looking up at him, "it's the memories inside them." It wasn't enough for Pitch to make them stop believing in me and making it impossible to carry out the simplest of my duties, but he had to destroy what the real purpose of the job was. There were people down there in the world who were slaving away over work or fighting with their family, or running away, all of whom needed to be reminded of what really mattered - the scenes contained in the sweet memories that we collected and guarded.

"What do you mean?" he asked me, his brow furrowing.

"That's why we collect the teeth, Jack," I said. "They hold the most important memories of childhood." I lifted off the ground again, flying over to the mural. Jack followed me, freezing the water where he stepped. "My fairies and I watch over them, and when someone needs to remember what's important, we help them..." I looked at the mural, thinking of my life as a human and what it had meant to me. Had I been a hypocrite when I had let all those memories slip away into the farthest recesses of my mind? "We had everyone's here," I continued. Without really thinking, I reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. He's not Jackson Overland anymore, I told myself, he's Jack Frost. He's not my best friend. He's not the boy I used to know. But his memories... those are still Jackson Overland's. "Yours too," I added quietly.

"I-... my memories?" he asked, looking up at me, clearly confused.

"From when you were young," I said, "before you became Jack Frost." Before we lost you, before you changed, before, when you were my friend. When I loved you, I thought. Why was he looking so bewildered?

He stepped back, away from me. "But, I... I wasn't anyone before I was Jack Frost," he shook his head, looking up at me again.

What?! Was he serious? "Of course you were," I said, now a bit confused myself, "we were all someone before we were chosen." You were Jackson and I was Tabitha and now you're Jack Frost and I'm Toothiana.

Jack's eyes widened though, like this was news to him. "What?"

"You should have seen Bunny," North cut in, his shoulders shaking with laughter.

"Hey, I told you never to talk about that," Bunny said, shushing him angrily. Indeed North never had, at least not to me.

Jack's eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed as he talked more to himself than to me. "That... that night at the pond I... I just assumed I-" he looked up at me again, eyes wide, his voice getting louder, "Are you saying... are you saying that I had a life before that?" He turned away again, pacing on the ice, "Wait... with... with a home? And a family?" He turned and looked back up at me with a surprised and hopeful smile.

I looked back at him, shaking my head not to say no but because I couldn't believe it myself. Could this even be possible? "You really don't remember?" I asked. This... this would explain so much! The way he acted around his family, the way he- well... If his memories were lost, he wouldn't remember Tabitha either, so he'd never have looked for me. But even if he got his memories back, he wouldn't recognize me.

"All these years, the answers were right here! If I find my memories, then I'll know why I'm here. You have to show me!"

Toothiana, the Moon's voice rang in my head. It was like time stopped. It is not your place to reveal to Jack his lost memories. You must not tell him anything about his life as Jackson Overland. He must discover his memories on his own.

But, why? I thought back to the Moon. Why doesn't he remember anything? Why can't I just tell him now? He wants to know, he deserves to.

You must not tell him, was the Moon's only response.

I blinked at it was like not a second had passed. "You have to show me!" Jack said enthusiastically, taking to the wind and flying upward to leave the Palace.

I started to say, "I can just tell you," and Moon's orders be damned, but I suddenly froze up. I shook my head a little and tried to say, "I know all about you, Jack," but I frozen again. The Moon, I thought. The Moon is stopping me. I sighed. "I..." What could I say to him? "I can't, Jack," I said quietly. "Pitch has them." It was true enough and would explain why I couldn't tell him myself.

He turned around, still too excited to be frustrated. "Then we have to get them back!"

I was about to respond but I suddenly became aware of that feeling of my energy draining again, and a handful of my feathers came out and drifted to the ground below me. "Oh, no," I gasped. I turned around and looked at the mural. A gray color was spreading across it like a disease, fading out the colors. "The children... we're too late!" My heart sunk. There was nothing I could do now.

"No!" North said forcefully. "No! No such thing as too late!" He rested his swords on the fur shoulders of his thick coat, his fingers tapping on their grips as he paced around. "Hmm...Wait... wait... wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! Idea!" he cried, swinging his sword around and nearly hitting Bunny. "We-" he gestured to us Guardians with his swords, "will collect the teeth!"

"What?!" It was crazy. I was the Tooth Fairy, it was my job, I was little made for it. I was half hummingbird for heaven's sake, and even I needed the help of hundreds of fairies! There was no way-

"We get teeth, children keep believing in you!" he said, practically bouncing with excitement, pointing at me.

I darted over to him. "We're talking seven continents - millions of kids -"

"Give me break," North said, clearly confident. "You know how many toys I deliver in one night?"

"And how many eggs I hide in one day?" Bunny added, just as smugly.

"And, Jack," North said, turning to the boy who was already grinning, "if you help us, we will get you your memories."

Jack's smile grew wider and everyone else looked so determined. I couldn't help but smile a little bit, just an ounce of my joy coming back. They were right, Bunny and North both spent one day a year dashing around the whole planet, and even Sandman was constantly making rounds, bringing dreams to the children. Plus, Bunny's tunnels and North's snow globes would make up for the way the Tooth Palace allowed my fairies and I to fly to wherever we needed to be. Everyone looked to Jack, waiting to see if he'd agree. "I'm in," he said, looking excited and just as determined as the Guardians.

And there was no time to lose, so away we went.

We flew through cities faster than I would've thought the others capable of. North dashed along rooftops, going in and out of chimneys, and Bunny darted just as quickly across them, using windows to go in and out and racing with Jack it seemed who was riding the wind as quickly as Bunny could jump. Even Sandman moved faster than I'd ever seen him move. "This - is going to be - epic!" North shouted, bobbing up and down through the chimneys.

I flitted along between them with Baby Tooth along side me, calling out the addresses of the teeth, filled with the thrill of collecting teeth again. I had realized that as my powers had started to fade, the flow of information in my head of where to collect teeth had slowed and grown quiet. But now, with the excitement easily blocking out my fear and worry, the instructions were there again, clear as day. My energy was even increasing and I didn't feel drained as I had before, and none of my feathers were falling off either. That meant that the kids believed in me again!  "Four bicuspids over there!" I called, pointing them in the right direction. "An incisor two blocks east! And a molar- They're everywhere!" I shouted with delight. I was flying so fast and in so many directions that I suddenly flew face-first into a billboard. "Ow..."

Jack landed on the top of the billboard. "You ok?"

I rubbed my nose and laughed. "I'm fine." Getting a look at the billboard, it was an advertisement for toothpaste no less. I flew up to him, still so excited with the job that it was all I could think about. "Sorry," I laughed again, "It's been a really long time since I've been out in the field."

"How long is a long time?" he asked.

I was about to give a real number but I realized that I probably shouldn't give Jack any hints, and the best way to do that was to tell give him a number that would put me as having been around longer than him. "Four hundred and forty years, give or take." I was spared from having to offer  further explanation when I sensed a tooth under a pillow not a block away. I gasped with delight and flew off to collect it.

Under another pillow, instead of a tooth I found a small mouse with a cap and a belt. I remembered having heard something about the belief of the "Tooth Mouse" spreading throughout Europe rather than the "Tooth Fairy", but the belief in the Mouse helped me anyway despite the difference, and a bunch of mice had been recruited to help us in that division in order to keep that belief strong. Baby Tooth, however, dove at him and kicked him against a wall. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, take it easy there champ," I said, grabbing her wings gently, "he's one of us. Part of the European division."  I smiled apologetically at the mouse. "Ça va?" He just squeaked angrily at us, so we moved on.

After several cities, we all gathered on a rooftop, each of them holding a sack filled with teeth. They seemed to have made something of a contest out of it, each trying to collect more than the others, and this had helped them collect them so fast. "Wow," I said happily, "You guys collect teeth and leave gifts as fast as my fairies." Suddenly they all looked surprised and then so did I. "You guys have been leaving gifts, right?" Sandman nodded at first and then shook his head and the others looked at each other and shrugged guiltily. "Go find quarters!" I said, "Go! And if you run out, just leave whatever else you can!"

I turned and flew upward toward the Tooth Palace with Baby Tooth, the two of us grabbing as many quarters as we could and flying back down to earth, covering as much ground as we could, delivering quarters at record speed. I guess that one's my fault, I thought as I flew. I never actually said anything about leaving quarters, did I. Baby Tooth seemed to know what I was thinking and she chirped at me encouragingly.

After countless hours, it seemed that we had finally collected all of the teeth would could at that point, except for one in Massachusetts. My heart sank a little when we landed in the town. It had changed over time, sure, but it was still the very town in which Jack and I had grown up. I swooped in through the window, Jack following me. From the hand-drawn pictures on the wall, it was easy to guess how this particular tooth had been lost. I took it gently from under the pillow of a brown-haired little boy who slept peacefully. "Left central incisor," I whispered, "knocked out in a freak sledding accident. I wonder how that could've happened, Jack!" I gave him a pointed look but he knew I was just teasing him.

He chuckled, looking at a picture on the wall of a very happy looking child flying through the air on a sled. "Kids, huh?" he said, giving me that charming half-smile that I'd loved on Jackson Overland's face. I almost melted right there, remembering Jack fondly as he'd once been. Realizing that I was getting distracted, I turned to the child sleeping in bed, hovering over him.

"Mm, this was always the part I liked most," I said, "seeing the kids." The boy looked so sweet, his arms wrapped around a stuffed bunny while he slept soundly in the glow of a night light. I had missed this so much. My fairies had done so much of the collecting that my trips to earth were rare and brief, and usually concentrated to one city. Sure, I got to see the collect teeth every once in a while myself, but I so rarely stopped to actually see the kids. I'd always been flying so fast. "Why did I ever stop doing this?" I asked myself, wrapping my own arms around myself.

Jack looked up at me then back at the child. "Hm... It's a little different up close, huh?"

I turned and looked at him. "Thanks for being here, Jack," I said sincerely, thinking of how he'd always been able to cheer me up and make me smile back when we were just kids. Now that I knew his memories were gone, I couldn't be angry with him, and the feelings of affection that Tabitha had harbored were beginning to creep back into my heart. I rested my hand on his shoulder again. "I wished I'd known about your memory," I said. "I could've helped you." Apparently me saying this didn't reveal too much, as the Moon didn't censor me like it had before.

"Yeah, well..." he looked off to the side and then back at me. "Look, let's just get you taken care of," he said, smiling softly and speaking reassuringly as I'd seen him talk to Pippa all the time, the same way he'd sounded when he'd told me, People will always talk, but it doesn't matter. You being happy matters. His face took on a determined look and a confident smile as he said, "Then it's Pitch's turn."

I was about to respond but then North squeezed in through the window saying, "Here you are!" while Sandy followed behind. I shushed North, worried that he would wake the child, but of course Sandy wouldn't be a problem. "Oh," North said, and then whispered at us, "What gives, slowpokes?" Then he looked at me hopefully. "How you feeling, Toothy?"

I beamed. "Believed in!" I whispered back.

North laughed, patting me on the back when suddenly a hole opened up in the floor and Bunny popped out. "Oh, I see how it is," he said, looking around at us, "working together and making sure that the rabbit gets last place." Both North and I shushed him but Jack didn't help.

"Nah," he said smugly, "you think I need any help to beat a bunny?" He pulled out a sack of teeth and said, "Check it out, Peter Cottontail!" I almost laughed. Even though he wasn't the Jack from my childhood, he still had that tricky and competitive side, ready to compete with anyone.

Bunny was not impressed and gave a smug smile of his own. "You call that a bag of chompers?" He pulled out his own bag which was considerably larger than Jack's and said, "Now that's a bag of chompers."

"Gentlemen, gentlemen," North cut in, "this is about Tooth! It's not a competition... But if it is, I win!" he said, showing the biggest bag of teeth between the three and hooting with delight, clapping his hands. Suddenly, a light flicked on, focused on North. "Oh, no..."

The boy was leaning forward on his bed, shining a flashlight at North. He gasped in disbelief. "Santa Claus," he whispered, then turned his light to Bunny, who laughed nervously. "The Easter Bunny?" Then he looked to Sandy and said, "Sandman!" Sandy smiled and gave a little wave. Then he looked at me. "The Tooth Fairy! I knew you'd come!"

I was so unsure of what to do. Children had gotten glimpses of me before and of the others too, I'm sure, but what were we supposed to say when all of us were gathered here at the end of his bed. "Surprise!" I said sheepishly, "We came!" I gave a nervous laugh.

"He can see us?" Jack whispered, stepping forward. Right... People don't see Jack because they don't believe in him. I thought. But how could I point that out to him?
Bunny did it for me. "Most of us," he said, not unkindly, looking over at Jack as the boy's eyes passed unseeingly right over the space where Jack was standing.

I felt bad for Jack for a moment but then realized, "Shh! You guys, he's still awake!"

"Sandy, knock him out," Bunny said, and Sandman stepped forward, looking like he was about to actually knock Jamie out with his fist, and Bunny sighed. "With the dream sand, you gumby!"

Then there came a vicious growling sound and we all looked over to the boy's bed to see a dog advancing menacingly toward Bunny.

"No, stop, that's the Easter Bunny! What are you doing, Abby, down!" the boy said, crawling forward and trying to restrain the dog.

"Alright, nobody panic," Bunny said.

"But that's a, um," Jack said with a knowing smile and chuckle, "that's a greyhound. Do you know what greyhounds do to rabbits?"

"Well, it's a pretty safe bet he's never met a rabbit like me," Bunny said, unperturbed, "six foot one, nerves of steel..." Sandy rolled his eyes and conjured up a ball of dream sand. "...master of tai chi, the ancient art of..." he continued until Jack reached over to the nightstand and tapped the alarm clock there with his staff. It started ringing immediately, startling the dog who growled even more and leapt at Bunny, who shouted, "Crikey!" He backpedaled into Sandy who suddenly had to juggle the ball of dreamsand.

"Calm down!" the boy shouted to his dog as she chased Bunny around the room. Sandy was trying to take aim at the dog but she leapt into him and the ball of dreamsand sailed across the room toward North, who dodged it just in time to let it fly right into my face....