The winds howled as Jack and Tooth flew toward the window he'd scouted.

"Freesia," Tooth whispered to the mini fairy. Seeming to understand his unasked question, she slipped inside of the window's open gap. The seconds it took for her to come back out felt like an eternity. The coast was clear.

Jack pulled the rest of the window open and brushed the heavy curtains back, re-doing the latch only halfway once the three of them were safely inside. They would find another way out, and they wouldn't leave a trace. Let them think they'd gone this way.

Though he could see slight swaths of light in the distance, the hall they'd come into was dark.

"Should we split up?" Tooth whispered.

Jack shook his head. "We take our time," he decided, motioning her toward the other side of the hall. "Be as quiet as we can, don't draw attention." It was a struggle to say the words—to mean them when there was an itch inside of him that begged for movement. He wanted to barge into every door, to slice fearlings into wisps, to feel ice swirling freely over his fingertips. But he forced himself to keep along the edges of the walls in quiet search while he pushed down the adrenaline building in his veins. Slow and steady wins the race.

But Jack did not like slow and steady.

Rapunzel, now was his time to pray, though he knew it did not work both ways. Please be here. There was a pull in his heart as he and Tooth passed by countless locked doors. He kept going forward, toward the blinding beam of light coming from around the corner until—

There was a sharp gasp. A flash of tinted leather.

"I thought you were supposed to stay outside," Jack hissed.

Flynn Rider's brows shot high in surprise. "Couldn't keep still," he offered. Jack wanted to argue more, but then his eyes caught sight of Flynn's company.

"Jack!" Rapunzel exclaimed, grass green eyes wide. She pushed past Flynn, flinging her arms around Jack's neck to pull him into a close embrace.

She was warm against him, small, and her touch brought stars to his skin as he wrapped his own arms around the middle of her back. As he lowered his chin into the softness of her hair. As she nestled into his chest, something rectangle and stiff pressing hard into his back.

Flynn let out a startled yell, and Rapunzel shot away from Jack, leaving him cold, to press a hand against the gorilla's mouth.

"Hush!" She warned.

Flynn's explanation was muffled behind her hand, but his eyes were glued to something over Jack's shoulder. Rapunzel's arm slowly lowered as she followed his gaze.

"The Tooth Fairy," she whispered dreamily.

Tooth brushed past Jack with an extended hand, Freesia fluttering just behind her. "Please to meet you," she greeted her happily.

"Blue bird," Flynn muttered.

"You're beautiful," Rapunzel breathed, reaching to shake Tooth's hand. Jack could see the brief tremble of anxiety in her free arm. The relief hit him all at once—they'd found her. She was okay.

And there was a familiar book pressed tightly in the crook of her elbow.

"Katherine's sketchbook," Jack realized.

Rapunzel met his stare with an excited glint in her eye. She'd just begun lifting the book when an arrow of pure darkness shot past him. It met Rapunzel's shoulder, sending her toppling to the ground with a pained gasp. Jack caught sight of her scrambling for the fallen sketchbook before he spun into action.

Strings of darkened dreamsand rose before them, shaping themselves into mares and grotesque-looking fearlings. Tooth drew the twin blades at her hips, their needle-like bodies slicing through the darkness.

"The window!" Jack urged, noticing at once that all of the curtains had been drawn save the one to their left. Where Rapunzel and Flynn had come from.

Flynn pulled Rapunzel to her feet just as she caught the sketchbook, dragging her to safety as Jack and Tooth worked to keep the shadows at bay. But it was an infestation; as soon as they ripped through one, another took its place.

By the time they made it to the window, the shadow beings had long consumed the hall. Jack watched as they swirled around the dome of light protecting them, risking brief touches of the light before quickly drawing back. It wouldn't take long for them to find a way through. What would they do if a cloud drifted past the sun? Jack didn't want to test their luck.

"Open the window," he told Flynn.

A soft gust of wind met them when he did. Jack took hold of it, sending it hurling for the window down the right hall. The curtain moved slightly, causing the shadows to hiss as a thin beam of light stretched across the floor. He sent another gust forward, drawing a second sliver.

"Can you scale down?" Jack asked Flynn, eyes on the darkness.

"I have my equipment," Flynn replied. There was a slight tremble in his voice he was attempting to hide.

"We'll meet you outside." Jack told him. He turned, fingers finding Rapunzel's. "Rapunzel, we have to fly."

Fear filled her eyes. She glanced toward Flynn, who was busy pulling a long rope from his satchel. "No," she shook her head. "Not the window. Not down there."

"We have to!"

"I can't!" She cried, voice cracking. She was shaking now, knuckles white around Katherine's sketchbook. The fingers that were curled around Jack's clenched tightly. "I can't," she repeated. Her breaths were coming short.

"You'll be okay," Jack insisted. Begged. "I won't let you fall, Rapunzel."

A moment passed. She'd just managed a small nod when Jack felt a familiar sense of dread filling out the gaps of the hall. It was like a weight had been dropped onto the universe, Pitch Black's presence heavy with the fears of Earth's eternity.

"Not so quick," his voice drawled as he loomed out of the shadows. "We barely got to say hello."

They were too late. A sliver of darkness shot toward them. Jack blew it away with a slice of icy blue frost.

"Mother," Rapunzel breathed in realization.

"Not exactly," Jack answered with another shot of magic. "This guy's slender, immortal, and more of a prick to get rid of."

"She summoned you." Jack couldn't be sure whether Rapunzel had even heard him.

Before them, Pitch's lips grew into a wicked grin. "Clever girl. Just like your mother."

"She summoned you," Rapunzel repeated, "which is why you're leashed like a dog."

Something flared in Pitch's golden gaze. Was it anger, or the boogeyman's own fear?

Jack could see it now that Rapunzel had said it—how his powers weren't stronger, per say, but different considering that fear was no longer the pure root of his magic. No longer the thing keeping him here. It's why the lack of fear here hasn't kept him away, he realized.

Behind him, Tooth's twin swords dipped a fraction. "Impossible," she said. "It hasn't been done since the dark ages. She couldn't have done it on her own."

"It means that she's awake," Rapunzel took Jack's hand again, sending a rush of tingles through him as she squeezed his fingers. She looked at him with urgency in her gaze. "I'll close my eyes," she promised.

Gloom had begun to cloud them despite the sun beaming brightly through the window—the fearlings had begun consuming the edges of their light. Jack hadn't noticed how close to one another the four of them had gotten until now.

A soft hiss sounded from behind him as he watched Pitch approach. Rapunzel hummed a song under her breath until a glow lit her hair like a halo, but he knew it would do them no good soon.

They needed to leave. Now.

But there was that pull again. The one that came whenever he got too close to Flynn Rider's satchel. Ellevte. The box. Evanora Hailwell's box. His fingers tightened around Rapunzel's as she shifted her hum to a familiar bedtime tune. Though he tried to fight the urge, he couldn't bring himself to will the winds to whisk them away just yet. If they fled now, he knew, Pitch and Gothel would only find them again. They wouldn't stop until Rapunzel's power was on their side—until they brought a second dark age down upon the world.

And something in Jack's gut—perhaps the pull—told him that box might just be their salvation.

"Jack?" Rapunzel asked with a soft tug.

Jack twisted just in time to avoid a shot a darkness aimed his way. He pulled Rapunzel to her knees, shielding her from the shower of glass that rained around them when the darkness met half of the window. Heat poured in, mixed with cool northern wind.

"Rider," Jack bit out, glancing up to see that he'd already disappeared down the rope. He reached the window's ledge in time to catch him only a fourth of the way down—he'd expected him to be lower. "Rider," he repeated, drawing his attention. "Give me the box!"

Flynn hesitated, but he pulled the satchel onto his lap and reached inside without a word.

"Faster!" Jack urged.

It seemed to be calling to him, the feeling worsening when Flynn held the object in the palm of his hand. Jack caught it in one swift movement as it flew up into the air. He twisted toward Pitch and he flung the lid open.

A mixed sense of dreaded fear and profound relief engulfed Jack's senses at once. It was like holding on to a black hole. The box pulled hard against his grasp, a power so strong and ancient Jack felt its force within his the depths of his bones. A shadow passed over him. It was breaking him, tearing him apart—until, suddenly, it wasn't. He felt it reverse. It was trying to suck him inside now, pull, pull, pulling at his skin, his soul, his breath.

Desperate, Jack frosted the palms of his hands until they were glued onto the box, forcing it in place. In the distance, he could hear Pitch's yell, could hear his fear as the box pulled him against his will. He saw a dulled white glow that contrasted Rapunzel's yellow appear on his right, along with the flick of a dark staff much longer than his own.

It suddenly dawned on him which song she'd been humming earlier. Relief swelled inside of him as he watched Pitch's creatures melt into the wisps of his body. The heat had already melted his frost into a dripping puddle, so Jack was quick to snap the lid shut on the boogeyman's new prison as soon as the last folds of him were sucked inside.

Silence filled the hall in one quick gust—only to be replaced by Tooth's horrified yell.

Jack caught the flash of Nightlight's diamond blade just as it slid into Rapunzel's stomach.

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If you liked this chapter... Well, you know what to do. I'm just going to calmly walk away now....

(Ps: I'm going to have to ship my laptop in for a battery fix, so I'm not sure how long it'll be before I can write and post the next chapter. I apologize. :/ Technology apparently is not my friend.)

*Edited, (May 18th, 2021).