Jack slept like the dead, curled up on top of the blankets.
He was disoriented when he first woke up, reaching blindly for his staff. This wasn't his bed, and it wasn't the snow bed, where...
Baby Tooth chirped sleepily and Jack shook his head, coming fully awake. The Pole, he was back at the Pole. This was his bed. The Guardians came for him, they didn't abandon him. He was free.
He'd watched the Snow Queen turn into a statue of ice, and though she hadn't been shattered, he wouldn't be surprised if someone vengeful found out about what had happened and tried to.
Not his fault. It was her spell. She'd been attacking Rani.
...still, maybe her statue could be moved somewhere safer. The basement of the pole or his ice palace in Antarctica, maybe.
Sitting up, Jack curled up against the headboard, looking around the room as he thought, avoiding thinking about what had just happened by thinking over what he considered to be a bigger problem.
If he could believe Nightlight, than this whole this was a miscommunication, an attempt to wait until he felt more secure to tell him about the marriage. A chance for the other Guardians to get their own act together before bringing him in.
And he wanted to believe that, but ages of hurt didn't go away that easily.
After a few minutes, he sighed and stood up. He was retreading old ground here, even with the added 'they came for me' that kept running through his head, proof to his heart that they cared and balancing the voice in his head that tried to find reasons for it beyond 'they care.'
Jack cracked open the door, not surprised when he saw a yeti outside, working on a small toy prototype.
They perked when they saw Jack, and he gave a little wave. "Hey," he said awkwardly. The yeti began to babble, and Jack winced. "Um, maybe don't ask me that yet?" he said.
"I...look, I want to talk to Freyr and his crew if they're still willing," he said when the yeti paused, looking at him with tilted head. "I need to get my head straight. Then I'll talk to the Guardians."
The yeti spoke again, a long screed in yetish. Jack nodded his way through it, saying, "Yeah, I know, but I still need to talk to them first. Yeah, I could eat. Yeah, you can tell them I'm up, so long as you let them know I'll talk to them later."
The yeti nodded and patted Jack's head before making their way down the hall, moving surprisingly quickly and quietly for someone of their size.
Jack ducked back into his room to wait, and hoped he could get some good advice for once. That this was the right decision.
Baby Tooth was awake by the time the other spirits arrived, munching happily on the tiny vegetable curry the yeti had brought her. Jack was watching over her sitting in her little lantern room as he sat on the edge of his bed with his own vegetable curry, noticing how much she'd grown and wondering if the yeti would be irritated that he needed to ask for a bigger lantern for his best girl.
Sorry, Tooth and Katherine, he thought with amusement as Rani ate with tiny, neat, ravenous bites, but this little one had him wrapped around those tiny fingers.
There was a knock at the door, and both looked up. The door opened at Jack's call to come on in, revealing Freyr, who was smiling gently, if a touch nervously.
