ROTG Fanfiction: Strange World: Chapter Two

Damp pieces of pre-chewed cookie spewed out of Bunny's mouth when he heard the news. Jack's icy eyes grew wide as saucers. Yetis and elves all around dropped their projects and stared in awe. A giant exclamation point appeared over the Sandman's head.

Coughing, Bunny was the one to answer first, "Whaddya mean "daughter"?! How did that even happen? I thought we can't…" he trailed off. He looked between the frantic Tooth and the sad North, wondering every possible thing.

The fairy sighed, "We can't but this is a… special case."

"How?"

"Well…"

"Wait, wait, wait," Jack interjected. "What can't we do?"

Tooth gave him a bittersweet smile. "Fairy Tale creatures can't have children, Jack."

He narrowed his eyes, "But don't you have like, a hundred?"

She shook her head, "Two-thousand six-hundred and forty-seven, but that's not the point. The point is that, even though technically they are my babies, there was never a point in time that they weren't." She pointed up to the gap in the ceiling, "When the moon created who I am now, my fairies were created as well. My identity as the Tooth Fairy was never without my Baby Tooths."

"But that doesn't explain why we can't have kids."

"Yes, I know. But I'm getting to that… why don't we say Sandy and, oh I don't know, Mom got together, they wouldn't be able to conceive a child." She looked over to the Sandman to give him an apologetic look for involving him in the explanation, but his head was in the clouds just thinking about Mom.

"'Mom'?"

"Mother Nature."

"Ah, I see. Carry on."

"They wouldn't be able to have a child because it has no reason to exist. It has no one that would be able to believe in them, so its creation wouldn't be possible. To be believed in, it would need to show the world who it was, but how could it do that without any powers? And even if the kid did have powers, how would it know? It would be without purpose, or any real identity. And after all, we were all someone else before we were who we are now, right?"

"Huh…" Jack trailed off, taking it all it.

Bunny eyed him, "How didn't you know this, mate? You've been around long enough."

Ice-boy shot him a pointed look, "Well if you did notice, I haven't really been around people that much."

"Hey now, don't get your dunders in a bunch just because-"
Tooth clapped her hands together to get their attention, "Boys! Boys! We don't have time for this!"

A question mark popped over Sandy's head.

"Tooth is right." Everyone looked over to North and was surprised. He was now sporting his red coat and ushanka, as well as a deep frown and determined set in his jaw. But if one looked close enough, they could see the raw fear in his big blue eyes. "We must be going. Now." And with that he turned on his heel and walked away. Everyone stared at each other for a second or two, pondering, but then rushed over to follow him.

"What are we doing?" Tooth questioned as she fluttered beside the brisk walk of her old friend.

"We are going on sleigh-ride."

"W-what?" Bunny stopped right in his tracks. "Oh no. There is no way I'm getting back in that thing."

With an eye roll, Jack walked past the rabbit and hooked the end of his staff on the leather strap and dragged Bunnymund behind him. He made threats and protest, but Jack didn't dignify them with a response. When they got to the ice cavern where the sleigh was stored, the Easter King was nearly in tears. But, you know, manly tears.

As they all climbed aboard, Jack turned to North. "So where are we going anyway?"

"New York City."

"What? Why? I was just there, and I gotta say, it's not as great as they make it sound. Too much noise and the air there is so disgusting." Jack settled into the seat beside Bunny, to watch him, and Tooth. Sandy sat behind them and had his hands up in anticipation of the ride.

North didn't answer.

Jack turned to Tooth, "Do you know?"

She nodded but looked down at her hands, "Yes. It's… it's where Natasha lives. Pitch is looking for her and we need to get to her before he does. If we don't, everything will be ruined."

"Crikey," Bunny remarked, "How do you know about the girlie anyway?"

A shrug, "I'm the Tooth Fairy; I took her teeth, of course. And when she lost her first one, I could tell there was something different about it, so I checked her memories. It was her first that set me off. It was a tad blurry, but I could tell it was of her reaching up as a little tiny baby, towards a man. Towards North." She glanced up at the big man as he fiddled with dials and confirmed things about the flight with the yetis. "So I confronted him about it, and he told me about her. And since then I've tried my hardest to keep her safe, but it seems it was too big a job for me."

North sighed, "I didn't do much better, and I'm her father."

And with that, before any more questions could be asked, he flicked the reins and the reindeer took off. They sped down the tunnel, hoofs pounding hard against the ice, making one wonder if they broke any part of it. They turned around and around the loopty-loops, making Bunny almost throw up, and when they finally saw the night sky, the deer led them right off a cliff. Now one might think that that would mean certain death, but of course these Santa's magic reindeer, and the just glided through the air, smoother than on land. By then Bunnymund was passed out and Tooth was caring for him while Sandy silently giggled.

"So North," Jack stood up and went over the big man as they went on their way. "There's one thing I've been wondering about this whole thing."
Santa gave him a bored look, "What?"

"If us Magical Magicians of Make-believe can't have kids, how did you manage it?"

The big man sighed, "I thought you would ask this." He looked up to the big ominous moon, possibly for strength or something of the like. "Natasha's mother is human."

Jack's eyebrows shot up, completely confused. "Wait what? Human? How can you… I don't know how… I can't even…" He shook his head and collected his thoughts. "How can't you do that? How could she even see you? Wait, HOW OLD WAS SHE?!"

That earned him a pointed look. "I am not pedophile, you sicko. Janice was twenty-two when I met her."

"And you're of many hundreds of years old? That's still a pedophile!"

Ignoring him, North went on. "I still have no idea how she could see me, but she did. She was the most beautiful woman I ever met, and her laugh? Oh, it was like the angels calling for me Jack. We fell for each other instantly and well…" He cheeks tinged a bit red and he cleared his throat. Jack grimaced, understanding the train of thought. "Anyway… nine months later Natasha was born, however I was not there. I was busy with my duties, and for that Janice refused to see me. When I finally broke her down I only got to see my baby for only a few minutes. I took the picture of her, played at tiny bit, but then Janice told me to go. She banned me from their lives and since then I've only been able to watch my daughter from afar, not knowing really anything about her life."

The entire sleigh was dead quiet, even Bunny who had woken up a few seconds before the tale. Everyone's minds whirled, having no idea how to comfort him, since none of them had anything close to the same thing in their lives. All they could offer him at this point was their help in finding his daughter and protecting her from the Boogeyman.

With a melancholy smirk, North reached into his coat and pulled out a snow globe. "New York City," he whispered, then drew back and threw the orb out way in front of them. It burst into a portal, quickly flashing the skyline of the City That Never Sleeps. The reindeer barreled through the portal without a second thought, taking the sleigh with them.

---

Central Park at last.

Natasha breathed in the crisp winter's night air then sighed. It had taken her long enough to get her. Stupid snow was making everything hard today. Good thing it stopped. She looked around before she started making her way to her destination. With her hands in her pockets she carried pepper spray in one hand and a switch blade in another. You could never be too safe in New York, and after all, she was stupidly in Central park at one o'clock in the morning. When she finally reached the place she wanted to go, she let out a small smile.

Trump Skating Arena.

Natasha looked around again to make sure she wouldn't get caught, and then jumped the border onto the ice, slipping a bit. The lights were out, but she could skate by moonlight. Natasha opened her backpack and dug her skates. They were old, scuffed, and a size and a half too small, but they were hers. She remembered the day she bought them, with money that she had earned by herself from babysitting. It was the biggest rush of freedom she ever felt, yet sadly the only one she ever knew

She stood up gingerly, since it had been a long time since she went skating; it was almost a full year ago, the day she was forced to quit figure skating.

She shook her head. No. Do not think about that. She forced herself to leave that memory untouched and pushed off with her right foot. Then her left. Then right. Left. Right left right left rightleftrightleft… Natasha glided around the rink, her body remembering everything that she had forced her mind to forget. She did a sharp turn and before she knew it she was skating backwards. But unfortunately she hit the boards. Ok. She was a little out of practice.

But when she looked up, she found herself facing a challenge. Ahead of her was the rest of the rink, taunting her. With a smirk she pushed off and began to push harder until she reached the perfect speed and then… she jumped. Natasha jumped so gracefully and so high that she resembled a cat. And then she spun. Once. Twice. Three times! The moon shone down almost like it was spotlighting her and she made her descent down. Her feet barely touched the ice and then….

And then she fell down.

She tripped over her feet and landed on her back, all the wind knocked out of her. She just laid there for a second, taking it all it, wheezing but not breathing in, until she realized something. She couldn't breathe in. She tried, but it was only little huffs of air. The more she tried, the more she failed. Over and over she tried to get oxygen in her lungs, but it just wasn't happening. All she could do was wheeze.

Shit, Natasha thought to herself, an asthma attack. She used all her might to roll over to her stomach and army crawled her way across the ice to her backpack. She just hyperventilated more. Shit shit shit. When she finally reached it she sat up and leaned against the boards. Natasha ripped open the bag and rummaged through it. After way too long, she found her inhaler in the side pocket. She fumbled it a bit, but she got the medicine in her after a bit. Then she pulled her knees up too her chest, put her head between them, and counted to ten.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Eight.

Nine…

…

Ten.

She sighed a sigh of relief. There. It was all over now. Nothing to fear.

"…asha…"

Her head snapped up at the sound. She looked around the rink. No one was else there, but did someone just whisper her name? She strained to listen, but it didn't happen again. She just shrugged it off and chalked it up to the wind.

As she put her inhaler back, she came across her phone. It was an old model. One of those Razor flip phones, and it was scuffed up like everything else she owned. She flipped it open and almost jumped. Geez, was it 3:00 AM already? Had she really been there for two hours? Dang, time just flew by. Richard was probably sobering up and getting ready for another day as New York's favourite newscaster. By the time she actually got back to the apartment, he would most likely be gone. How the man managed to survive only getting a couple of hours of sleep every night was completely lost to Natasha. Not that she really cared about whatever the dick did. She quickly switched her skates for her sneakers, stuffed everything back into her bag, hopped the boards and made her way back home.

However as she walked she couldn't get rid of the strangest feeling that someone was watching her…