Jack wasn't sure what Katherine and Nightlight had thought of his reaction to his sudden revelation, silent as it was – thanks ever so Cupid for clearing it up that yeah, he was falling for the other Guardians, made it so much easier to figure out he was already falling into 'like-like' for Katherine and Nightlight both.
At least whatever they had thought of him suddenly freezing and frosting over, the blush shining through the frost, they were keeping it to themselves rather than teasing him over it.
Jack cleared his throat, fighting back the blush. If his hands had been free, he would have made a gesture of some kind, but that would require pulling away and he didn't feel like doing that yet.
"Age doesn't keep you from being insecure sometimes," Katherine said, either not noticing or kindly ignoring his momentary panic. "So...about that story about you and General Winter and the rest?"
Jack laughed lightly, grateful for the topic change. "And you were going to tell me about Mr. Qwerty. General Winter, huh. Oh, wow, well. That one...that goes way back," he said.
Katherine let go of his hand and Jack immediately missed the warmth of her hand...an odd sensation, and suddenly he was very glad of the patience the other Guardians had shown him, so he could miss it. He wasn't sure how much longer he would have enjoyed having both of them holding his hands, but he had a little time left.
Katherine was digging in the bag at her side. "Mr. Qwerty is a GlowWorm," she repeated as she dug, finally pulling out a book and pen. "He helped Ombric to keep the library in order. He loved to polish the books and keep everything perfect. When Pitch attacked Santoff Claussen, looking for some of Ombric's books, Mr. Qwerty ate them. All of them. I know," she said, when Jack looked at her in disbelief. "It was hard to believe then, too. And it was too much for him, he had to cocoon himself to recover. When he came out, he was a book. A book-butterfly, whose wings were the pages of a book. He used to let me write in him, and I could pass messages back to Santoff Claussen with him."
"What happened to him?" Jack asked, stomach dropping. He hadn't seen anything like a butterfly book when he and Bunny and North had been cleaning up Big Root for Katherine and Nightlight to come home, but he hadn't been around for the unloading of the ship...
"He went with us so we could write down all we saw," Katherine said, confirming one thing Jack had hoped. "He sort of...went dormant after the first century," she added sadly. "We really weren't doing anything to write down, and we didn't see a good reason to wake him unless something happened. He's in North's library right now, and Sandy keeps checking on him. Hopefully he'll wake up soon. I hope," she said, so softly Jack could barely hear her.
"Hey, Sandy knows everything about sleep. He's better at putting people to sleep than waking them up, but he'll figure it out," Jack said gently. He patted her shoulder, unsure if he could take much more touching just now but Katherine needed some sort of comfort.
Katherine took a deep breath and sat up from the huddle she had started to fall into. "You're right," she said, smiling at the two of them. "Sandy can figure it out. We just have to trust him."
She reached up and squeezed Jack's hand, letting go quickly, as if she could tell that he was nearing how much touch he could take at a time.
"So," she said after a moment. "General Winter...?"
"Okay, okay," he chuckled. "I first...well, I want to say met, but it was more like 'encountered' General Winter after I was about a hundred, I think. It wasn't easy to keep track of the years, you know? Seasons, yeah, but not so much years. Anyway. It...took me awhile to figure out everything I could do, and that I...you know, did the frost and brought Fall and Winter and all that. I spent most of my time playing. Still do, ask Bunny. Apparently that's how my magic works. If it's not, I'm not going to find out anytime soon. So I'm goofing off, right? Just doing my thing, trying to make a fun snow day for some kids. Let them have a little fun for once since the machines they had to work at were frozen solid. And it's working. When out of nowhere my snow gets shoved aside for this really bitter cold, like, the killing kind of cold, and the kids got scared 'cuz they knew, you know? They knew really well how fast it could kill."
