Chapter 6: Death's Angel

"Does it really hurt?" Tooth asked, unsure. It'd been so long since she'd been walked through. Surprisingly, Bunny was the one to answer.

"It hurts, all right. Physically and emotionally. Like an electric shock straight ta yer core. An' it's cold, worse than the Pole." He shivered as he recalled that Easter that almost cost them everything.

"Same here." Jack nodded. Tooth, North, and Sandy winced. Sandy, however, raised a question mark above his head.

"Wait, they never told you what happened while you were gone?" Jack asked, perplexed. He hadn't expected them to not tell Sandy. The golden man shook his head, indicating that no, nobody would tell him anything. Jack sighed.

"Well, it's complicated. We might even see it in here, now that I think about it." Jack mused, missing the wave of unease that swept through the three Guardians at the thought. "I'll give you a quick summary, though. We had a big fight, which I'm sure you'll see much later in the memories, and I flew off for a while to cool off. I ran into Pitch, got my ass handed to me, and came back just in time to save Jamie's belief, kick Nightmare King butt, welcome you home, and return in time for dinner." Jack smirked.

"Language, Jack!" North admonished, before Jack's words truly registered.

"Wait, you ran into Pitch?! ALONE?!" Tooth screeched.

"Oh, di-did I forget to mention that?" Jack smiled sheepishly, inching away from the somewhat intimidating fairy.

"Yes, you did. But no matter! Everything is fine, now, and we will discuss when memory is shown!" North interjected, stopping Tooth before she could go on a tirade. Jack let out a sigh of relief. Thank you, North. It'd be hard enough with everyone's worrying about him throughout these memories. He didn't want to add in any... unnecessary complications.

The scene around them shifted as the next memory blurred into view. Frost (Memory Jack) was wandering through a forest in the middle of a blizzard.

"Guardians." MiM's ethereal voice made the group jump. "Jack is eight in this memory."

"Eight? He must mean immortal years..." Bunny crossed his arms, fighting the urge to shiver. He hated blizzards. Even if he couldn't feel them.

"Please! Stop! There's people out here!!" Frost cried out, tears frozen on his face. The Guardians were struck by just how young he looked.

Jack flinched as he recognized the memory. They watched as he tried and failed to reign in the storm, gasping for breath at the effort.

"Little One... you know I cannot." A whispery voice said. If one wasn't listening closely enough, they'd miss it.

"Who the hell was that?!" Bunny asked, whirling around to try to find the source of the voice.

"That's Wind." Jack said, smiling softly. Wind wasn't with them, here, so he'd gotten a little lonely. She had been his first friend, after all.

"But! Surely, just enough to get them home! There's a kid missing!" Frost tried again.

"I have explained the cycle of death and life to you. You already know, Young One. The Cycle must be kept." Wind said, a touch of sorrow in her voice.

"H-hello?" A small voice made Frost jump and spin around as he came face to face with a small child. She looked no older than ten.

"Oh my tooth..." Tooth's wings flittered gently as she landed on the ground. There was no way this child would survive the blizzard.

"Who are you?" The child asked, looking at Frost.

"She can see ya?" Bunny asked in surprise. Jack nodded, but said nothing.

"A-are you talking to me? You can see me?!" Frost looked halfway between thrilled and terrified.

"Are you an angel?" She asked, looking up at him from where she sat at the roots of a large tree.

"I'm Jack Frost. B-but we have to get you back to the village! It's far too cold out here for you!" Frost went to pick her up, but stopped inches from her skin. His instincts told him that if he touched her, something would happen.

"Mr. Angel?" The girl looked at him with wide brown eyes. "Can I have a hug? I'm scared, and it's so cold out here..."

He stood there for a moment, before an odd understanding flashed in his eyes. Suddenly, this weight seemed to settle around his shoulders as he smiled softly and sat beside the child. "Of course." He wrapped her in an embrace. And for a moment, the snow behind him seemed to form a pair of wings. He looked like the angel the child had mistaken him for.

She smiled, her shivering coming to a stop. "You're so warm!" She breathed in relief. As Frost stood up, her spirit was still in his arms. Her body lay, still and quiet at the tree's roots.

The Guardians watched the scene in horror. The child was dead. Jack had taken her spirit from her body. He'd reaped her.

"Amy, everything will be okay." Frost smiled, and the child-spirit in his arms looked up with a bright happy grin.

"I know!" She chirped, looking in awe at the storm around her. "I can't feel any cold when you're with me!" She grinned, though her attention seemed drawn towards something the guardians could not see. "What's that light?"

Frost looked up, and smiled softly. "Go on. Your papa's waiting." He set her down, and gave her a gentle push towards the light.

"Mate, is there really a light?" Bunny asked, though his ears were flat against his skull. This entire scene was so sad... Jack was only eight, and he'd already watched a child die?

"Yeah. I can see it. I suppose it's because I've already died. That's partially why I'm a Reaper. I work for MiM and Death." Jack explained, as the group watched the girl's spirit vanish.

Frost looked up to the sky, his snow wings fading away. "So is that my purpose? To comfort the dying? Can only the dying see me?" He looked up through the parting clouds to see the moon. "Because if that's why I'm here, then I'd have to say that's a pretty cruel existence."

None of the Guardians knew how to react to the scene as it blurred away into the now familiar break room.

"Jack?" Tooth ventured, but didn't know how to continue.

"It's part of my job as Winter, too. Those who die in my storms... particularly the children... I can give them comfort as they pass. Once they touch me, that's it. By the time they can see me, it's too late anyhow. My touch reaps them, which basically means that I remove their soul from their bodies, killing them. I feel warm and comforting to them, so they can pass on peacefully." Jack sighed. "I guard them, keeping their souls safe, until they pass on. Usually, this happens within an hour of death, but if they're stubborn, I'll have to find some way to convince them to pass on."

"You were only eight! You were just a child! You shouldn't have had to carry that kind of burden!" Tooth protested.

"Don't know if you missed the memo, Tooth, but in case you hadn't noticed, I still am a child." Jack shot back. This tense atmosphere was getting to him.

He needed to find some way to lighten things up. He was the Guardian of Fun, after all! He smirked, forming a snowball in his hand, before throwing it at Bunny, hitting him smack in the face. With a laugh, Jack sped off to the kitchen.

"Get back here!" Bunny gave chase, grinning as well.

North and Tooth simply shared a look before charging in and joining in the fight. Whatever would come, Jack was okay now, and that's what mattered.

A/N: Sorry it took so long for such a short chapter. I needed to add some more when (much to my horror) I found it was less than 1,000 words. For those of you who've read my Hetalia fanfictions (which is an anime, for those of you who don't know), you'll know that I typically make my chapters longer. My longest chapter to date is over 10,000 words (for one single chapter), so writing stories with these piddly short chapters is different for me, but allows me to update more often than three times a year. XD

I hope you've enjoyed this update. I've always liked the idea of Jack having some sort of special connection with Death, due to him having actually died. So here we are. I will go through all his immortal memories (Believe me, I'm doing a Hetalia fic of watching the memories/past of a character, and that starts at around 753 B.C. and goes to present-day. XD Yeah, that's gonna be a long one.)

I will also stick to this story till the end. I don't abandon my stories. (My first fic, HetaOni: Italy's Story, [anther Hetalia one] I've been working on for around 7 years, now. Still updating). So yeah, don't lose hope. Ever. ^^

I also don't write romance, for those of you hoping for it. If you squint, you may see some, but please don't PM me asking for Jackbunny or anything. You'll find that I don't write romance in any of my stories (except for a single pairing in Hetalia, but I ship that only because one character died as a child in war after confessing his love, so I love writing the one left behind. The angst and pain and suffering of losing someone he cared so deeply for is something I really love writing). So... yeah. If I ever do write a pairing, one of them is probably going to permanently die, so please don't bug me about it (Unless you really want me to kill off someone permanently, then I suppose I'll give it a shot, but... your funeral).

Having said that, I hope you really have enjoyed this chapter. I'm trying to keep the rating K (I normally write T for harsh language), so it's interesting.

Words: 1,303

Pages: 3

Posted: 01/04/2019