Believe

Collecting Teeth

Tooth sat down with an empty tooth box in her hands, and Baby Tooth was now resting on a broken box nearby. Claire and Jack walked over to them and then crouched down beside them.

Bunny, North, and Sandy were a small distance off. "Okay." Bunnymund said. "All right. I admit it. You were right about Pitch."

"This is one time I wish I was wrong." North replied. "But, he will pay."

"I'm sorry about the fairies." Jack told her.

"And the teeth." Claire added. Baby Tooth flew up and sat on her shoulder.

Tooth replied. "You should have seen them. They put up such a fight."

"Why would Pitch take the teeth?" Jack inquired.

"It's not the teeth he wanted." she explained. "It's the memories inside them."

"What do you mean?" Claire asked as she and Jack stared at her. Tooth got up and led them across the palace lagoon. The water under Jack's feet hardened into ice with each step. Claire used this ice to follow them across.

"That's why we collect the teeth, Jack, Claire. They hold the most important memories inside them." She showed them a wall mural. It was a beautiful picture of memories being gathered by fairies or being received by children. "My fairies and I watch over them, and when someone needs to remember what's most important, we help them. We had everyone's here." She looked to Jack. "Yours too."

"My memories?" Jack asked.

"From when you were young." Tooth answered. "Before you became Jack Frost."

Jack shook his head. "But, I wasn't anyone before was Jack Frost."

"Of course you were. We were all someone before we were chosen." Tooth stated.

"What?" Jack didn't fully comprehend what she was telling.

North entered the conversation. "You should have seen Bunny." He chuckled

"Hey, I told you never to mention that!" Bunny nearly shouted.

Jack was struggling with this new info. "That night at the pond... I just... why, I assumed. Are you saying... Are you saying I had a life before?. With a home, and a family?"

"You really don't remember?" she questioned.

Jack's face went blank. "All these years, and the answers were right here." He looked around the crumbling palace. "If I find my memories, then I'll know why I'm here." The wind lifted Jack off the lagoon and Claire jumped off the ice and back onto solid ground. He was ready to follow Tooth to his storage drawer.

"I can't Jack." Tooth regrettably said. "Pitch has them."

"Oh no" Claire said looking worried.

"Then we have to get them back!" Jack countered.

Right then, Tooth lost a few of her feathers. "Oh, no. The children!" she cried. They all looked at the mural and were horrified to see it disintegrating. "We're losing them. We're too late."

"No!, No!, No such thing as too late." North shouted. "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Idea! Ha!" he pointed one of his swords as he had a eureka moment and it was inches from Claire's face. "We will collect the teeth." he gestured to everyone with his swords.

"What?" Tooth was dumbfounded.

"We get teeth!, Children keep believing in you!" North declared.

"We're talking seven continents." she worried. "Millions of kids."

"Give me break!" North told her. "You know how many toys I deliver in one night?"