Rise of the Guardians, Tangled 1. Chapter 1

The blonde rubbed her eyes, hoping that they would be able focus again. Sleep nagged at her, pulling at her eyelids but she had to stay awake. Despite technological advancements, paper work was still paper work and she had to get it done before she went home. It was early November and the beginning of rain and flu season. At the hospital it was the worst time of the year. Car accidents, flu epidemics, high winds and power outages. While most people welcomed a white Christmas, snow was the worst for hospitals.

Even before snow has started, this month had already been hard. Today was specially awful. Sickness had been a big problem for the last couple of years. The blame was mostly on the air pollution and water supply. Because of all of the advancements, large companies manipulated the system in order to make more money, processes and limitations were over looked for 'a better future'. Only the people who worked with the children who's immune systems were failing, the young people who had heart problems, the life expectancy changes, knew.

The government was promising cure after cure but seemed to be failing to produce. She shook her head, trying to rid herself of the thoughts. She felt tears sting behind her eyes as she signed as a witness to the doctors called time of death. The boys name was Sam. He was only 6. A car had been going too fast and hit another car head on. The drunk driver made it, the little boy in the other car was impaled by a stray medal piece. He was rushed to the ER and they thought surgery was a success, but he ended up going into cardiac arrest. He couldn't be revived.

She sniffed and moved on to the rest. Medical forms, drug requests, patient files, blood work reports, filing, filing and more filing. It wasnt until 11pm that she was finally able to say that she was good to go home. Still in her pink scrubs, her blonde hair up in messy bun with long strands still hanging loose. Her body slumped slightly in her exhaustion.

God she was tired.

—

"Again."

"Fuck…you…"

The room was all white, matching the pureness of the lab coats that lounged just behind the thick glass. A man stood in the middle of the circular room, wires connected by sensor pads across his hair line, stuck to his neck and down his arms. Other wires attached to his chest, down to his hips. He mostly naked save for the black compression shorts that stretched over his thighs. His wrists were chained to the ground to keep him immobile. They didnt want another incident.

"Subject 5724 once again refuses direct order. Heart rate at 120. Blood pressure at 130. 5724 retains minimal changes to skin, though pupils are dilated. Rising to thirty amps."

"Thirty amps." The assistant repeated, turning a dial in the large board and entering data. The screen was projected onto the glass, detailing notes as well has controlling the electromagnetic shocks being sent into the subjects body. The translucent screen kept a virtual heart monitor, blood pressure and vitals as well as body temperature and room temperature. Brain scans were documented and saved to memory drive through out each session.

A manicured finger pressed enter, electricity traveled up into the subjects body like lightening. A painful roar echoed within the experimentation room, lights flickered. Within seconds the entire room was covered in a thin layer of jagged ice. Chains froze, wires cracked. Subjects pale skin illuminated, eyes glowed an ice blue, feet lifted ever so slightly from the ground before he fell to his knees.

Click.

"Subject 5724 reacts to thirty amps with temperature drop to below zero. Heart rate raised to 180. Blood pressure raised to 190. Subject is still conscious. In moment of thirty amps, body temperature dropped from his natural 60 degrees down to 30. Corneas reacted with illumination and pupils remain dilated."

Click.

"He looks tired." The assistant commented.

The doctor looked at the man behind the glass. His body shook, his lungs taking in as much air as possible, head down.

"Take him back to his holding cell." He said flipping through his file, "Bring me subject 6794."

—-

Rapunzel sighed, pulling her jacket around her tighter. Her purple scarf covered her neck from the cold night air, her knit hat covered her ears. She was lucky not to live too far from the hospital, her apartment building was only the blocks down but it didnt make it less cold. He cell phone vibrated in her pocket for the fourth time and she ignored it. She didnt want to waste the heat her hands were in by pulling them out of her jacket. It was probably Hiccup again. He was always worrying about her, even more than Eugene.

Hiccup was her closest friend. They went to med school together. While she stayed a nurse, he became the regions only cytopathologist. He specialized in the study of cells and diagnosing diseases. She wished she was as smart as him but her specialty was people rather than science. A microscope was too cold for her. She wanted to help people and she was working her way to being a pediatrician. It had always been her dream…well outside of her art. That didnt pay bills though.

Her phone buzzed again, this time at a constant rate.

She rolled her green eyes.

Hiccup was such a worry-wart. She has made the mistake of telling him she was staying late and he promptly went into parent mode. She abandoned her warmth and took her phone from her pocket.

"I'm alive."

_"You're infuriating you to know that? I hate when you walk home so late by yourself. You could at least let me know you're safe."_

"Sorry, Hic, I got caught up at work and its freezing outside!"

"_Just hurry up and get home safe. No talking to strangers!" _

"Thanks dad, anything else?"

She never caught what he said, her eyes following two large men, dressed in suits and leather jackets roam down the street. Their eyes shifted around, bodies taught with a hand resting inside their coat. It was all too strange to describe.

"_Rapunzel?… Rapunzel? Hello!"_

"Sorry I'm here!" She said and continued walking. She had only one more block before her building. Her eyes drifted, watching the men as they walked past her on the otherside of the street, they were fidgety and suspicious. Eye movement sporadic.

"_Ugh, I'm getting off the phone. Youre gonna give me a heart attack."_

She giggled, "okay ill text you when I get home. Love you."

_"Be safe. Love you too."_

Click.

—

His energy was drained, his body felt like lead. He just wanted to lie down and give up but he couldn't do that. Not now. Not after coming this far. He had tricked the assistant when she had wheeled him back to his cell. His hands were bound in tight cuffs, he had slumped his body and closed his eyes. He had enough of the sessions and the abuse. He had enough of doctors and needles. He needed out.

As soon as the woman wheeled him past a door he turned and snatched her ID card hanging from her shirt. His power, that they thought was exhausted, sprang forth and froze her solid. He had breeched the door, alarms sounding, lock downs starting. With a couple frozen guards and broken glass, he found himself outside. The air was cold, the ground beneath his bare feet crumbled and iced over. He did the only thing he could do.

He ran.

He learned that with the right momentum and wind speed he could ride it, manipulating the breeze like a current. He didnt have time to test it, he had to trust his instinct. He use shafts air between buildings, through ally ways but nothing more than that.

After awhile everything seemed to blur in his eyes. He was exhausted. He stumbled a bit, pushing himself up with his knees and barely making it to a rooftop with the wind shaft. He ran across the hard exterior on the building top, he expected to ride the wind over to the next rooftop, legs extended. But the wind had stopped, his exhaustion grew as black spots flashed before his blue eyes.

All of the sudden he was falling.

—

She was almost there, wishing for the moment where she could fall into bed. The lights of her condo building came into view. Her steps picked up speed. A loud crash made her jump and turn around, her green eyes wide,

"Who's there?" She said quickly. The street was dim, lamps lit he empty sidewalks and the small whistle of wind was her only reply. Her heart beat fast in her chest, the rush of fear had her blood racing, warming her from the inside out. She turned to hurry home when there was a groan before echoing thump on concrete. Her green eyes narrowed.

"Hello?"

No answer.

Her eyes went to the dark alley only five feet away. She could hear Hiccups voice in her head telling her to use her brain, to just be safe and go home. No talking to strangers. Her curiosity was a disease though. It ate at her gut, telling her she had to at least know. With a nod of resolve for herself, she slowly made her way to the shadowed area between the buildings.

She glanced into the darkness, "hello?" She called meekly.

Only silence.

She moved one…two…steps into the darkness, her hands trembling. She looked down to make sure not to trip over anything or her own two feet. One hand used the wall to guide her until she could see the large dumpster, a huge divot in the middle if the plastic lid. Her brow furrowed and she looked down at the ground.

She gasped.

It was a person! On the ground!

She ran over to the figure, darkness surrounded her but the moonlight bounced off the body in an eerie way. It was a man. His hair was a stark white and his skin pale. He was tall, lean, and wearing nothing but a pair of thin shorts. She placed a shaky hand on his neck, his pulse was faint and far between but it was his skin that shocked her more.

"Oh my god you're freezing!" She looked around for someone, anyone to help her but the street were empty. She looked at the handsome man again, his temperature had to dangerously low and if left out here he could die from exposure or hypothermia.

"Sir? Sir! Can you open your eyes?" She called. He didnt stir. She felt panic begin to set in, her heart beat fast. "Think, Rapunzel, think!"

But she had no other options.

She opened her phone and began to dial 911 when the sound of footfalls echoed toward her. Thinking fast she grabbed the man, pulling him and herself into the shadows. She held her breath, her heart beat in her ears.

"He couldn't have just disappeared!"

"Don't you think I know that?! We have to keep looking. He'll have our heads if we don't find him."

The footsteps receded.

She looked down at the man, his face was so angelic even in the darkness. Something inside her screamed at her. He was running from someone. You can only be running for two things: a bad choice or bad people. Her instincts told her that those men were dangerous. She gulped, closing her eyes for a moment before putting her cell phone in her pocket.

She sat in the shadows for a good five minutes.

Easing the dead weight onto her shoulders, a muscular pale arms anchored over her shoulders as she held him up with her other arm. She used all her strength and pull him up and lean him against her. She grit her teeth and made her way down the rest of the way to her building.

_Please don't die._

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	2. Chapter 2

Rapunzel sat in her living room, fire crackling behind her. His heart rate was stable again but he had yet to regain consciousness. The mysterious man was under a heating comforter as well as her warmest blankets, hoping to get his temperature back to normal. In the hour and a half his body temperature had only increased to a couple degrees over 60. The strange thing was that this blood pressure was normal, his lips were a healthy pink and his appendages all seems to be fine. His muscles were relaxed, reflexes were normal.

Her brow furrowed in thought, holding her cup of tea in her hands. She stared at him like a puzzle she was missing pieces to.

Honestly she was just lucky that Hiccup had convinced her an apartment building was a bad idea. He was more worried about her falling down the stairs and hurting herself then her ability to carry a body into her home. She had barely gotten the man to her sofa before her muscles gave out. He was heavy. She wasnt tall and she didnt have great muscle tone. Yoga and the occasional jog was the extent of her activity list. Not counting running around the hospital of course.

She had ran to her linens closet and grabbed her self-heating comforter and threw it over him, plugging it into the wall and setting on high. She added a her own down feather purple comforter as well as a soft throw blanket. She tucked him in before running around her single story condo like a chicken with her head cut off. She started the fire and got to work with what supplies she had from medical school.

Since she had got home she had been taking vitals, jotting down numbers and rechecking her patient every half hour. So it wasnt long until she found herself sitting on her coffee table, still in her pink scrubs with tea in her hands. Her blonde hair was down, warmed by the fire at her back. She stared at him, watching his chest rise and fall in his sleep. Her cell phone was long forgotten in a discarded jacket on the kitchen counter; the time kept by her small white watch on her wrist.

"What am going to do with you?" She mumbled over the rim of her cup.

—

He was burning up.

His whole body felt like he was drowning in boiling water.

He couldn't move, he could breathe but a weight was on his chest.

God he had to be in hell.

Or they had caught him.

He felt the beginning of despair sink into his gut as consciousness pushed itself through. He remembered running and then all of the sudden he was falling. The wind was knocked out of him and everything had gone black. God damn it why was it so hot! His cell wasnt this warm. His cell was always cold because of him. Where ever he was it was like his pores were suffocating. Like when they had put him in a steam room to see how his body would react. They must've thrown him in there again. Punishment this time. His whole fucking life was a series of punishments.

He attempted to move his arms, there was some resistance. He let out a groan.

"Oh my god, you're awake!" A feminine voice cried.

His eyes shot open. He shoved his body forward, eyes frantic. Someone had him. Someone had taken him. He had to get out.

"Wait! You shouldn't be moving around so much!"

His heart was hammering in his chest, adrenaline was pumping. The open air outside of the blankets began to turn cold around him. He shoved the offending layers off his person and shot to his feet. Just as he turned to move a small woman got into his path. She was wearing those things doctors wore. She was another fucking doctor.

He sneered, "Get out of my way."

It only took a pitiful shove to the side to get her to move. He didnt question why she wasnt pulling out a taser or a syringe to subdue him. He didnt think past trying to get to the door. He only took three steps before his knees buckled, the muscles in his legs felt like rubber, the soles of his feet ached something fierce and he found himself falling again. He hit the carpeted ground with a hard thud.

Wait. Carpet?

Carpet was only in certain rooms, rooms for psychological evaluations. He finally let himself take a breath. He sat up and looked around in suspicious wonder. The room was decorated with art pieces hanging on the white walls. There was a small fireplace in front of the couch, above it a moderately sized TV. One side of the room was filled with books from the ceiling to the floor, to his left was another wall filled with framed pictures. He could smell food. The smell of flowers faintly in the carpet along with the burning wood.

He looked at the stunned woman and took in her appearance. She was a small woman, her pink doctors outfit looked different than what he was used to seeing. Mainly because it was pink. Her eyes were a deep green, her hair was long and framed her face with gold. No he had never seen her at the facility before. He would've remembered someone as bright as her.

"Where am I?" He said, eyes watching her.

She sat down in front of him on her knees, both at the same level. He was taken back by the gesture, not used to someone choosing not to look down at him.

"You're in my home." She answered carefully.

"Why are you dressed like that?"

"I'm a nurse at St. Judith Hospital a couple blocks from here."

He instinctively glared at her, "So you're a doctor."

"Yes—well no not yet but I'm a nurse." She said, nervously tucking her hair behind her ear. She wasnt used to people glaring at her, "I was on my way home from work when I found you."

His expression lightened a bit at her confession. She had found him. He had fallen in exhaustion and she had taken him to her home. How? Why? She must want something from him. His blood. His abilities. Money for turning him in.

"I won't go back."

She tilted her head to the side, and eyebrow raised, "back where?"

"I won't."

"And you don't have to. You can stay here until you get better." She said with a smile her hands up to show she meant no harm.

Rapunzel had a feeling that where he escaped from made him fear doctors. Those men from before we're trying to find him to return him back to where he came from. Maybe it was a mental facility? Maybe he was a schizophrenic? Honestly she had no idea but the complete utter distrust for her made her want to convince she wasnt going to hurt him. To see him so afraid when he woke up, so frantic and scared made her want to hug him and tell him everything was going to be alright. She saw those looks in abused children, that panic in beaten wives. He was afraid and he was covering it up with anger. Anger was always easier than fear.

"Can I…" She took, a breath, keeping her hands up, "May I check to make sure you're okay? My kit is on the coffee table."

"Are you going to drug me?" He growled.

"Only if you ask to have medication. A nurse can not give medication without consent by her patient or in the unavoidable life or death situation in which revival is required."

His ice blue eyes widened.

He had never had someone tell him it was his choice.

"Okay." He mumbled. She gave him a bright smile that reached her eyes and it took everything in him not to turn around to be sure it was actually him who she was smiling at. She stood and offered him a petite hand.

"Let's get you back on the couch where is more comfortable."

Comfort. That was new too.

He let her help him over to the sofa, his legs felt like jelly. She was warm to the touch. Most people at the facility were cold due to the need to keep rooms sterilized. Not that he went out of his way to touch anyone. Once he was on the couch, he shoved the blankets of hell far away from him. The fire was warm enough, he didnt need to be suffocated. His blue eyes followed her movements as she sat in front of him and glanced over a yellow notebook, she was mumbling something to herself but he didnt ask.

She placed the stethoscope in her ears and looked at the male, "Sorry, this might be a bit cold."

He couldn't help but smirk, "I think I can handle it."

She placed the other end over his heart, her lips pouted in thought. His heart beat was regular, all valves seemed to be working. She let the device hang around her neck and she moved down the list, humming softly as she did so. She usually only did that for children, to help them feel more at ease but it wasnt like he was exactly in his element. She flashed a small light in each eye then took his heart rate and blood pressure.

Her hands were gentle. Her fingers soft on his skin. No one had ever handled him so nicely before. Most just moved him as they wanted, grabbed and pulled and poked. She had let him know every procedure and what exactly she was looking for. She let him know before touching him, a way of asking permission for his trust that she could do her job. She seemed to think for a moment before hesitantly picking up a thermometer.

"I'm going to take your temperature next. Can you open your mouth and place the end under your tongue please." She said sweetly. He opened his mouth and let her place the end in his mouth before closing his lips.

Definitely not used to being asked.

They looked at each other for a minute. Both evaluating the other. It was only under his scrutiny that she realized he was still in just the black compression shorts she'd found him in. She blushed a bit and mentally berated herself. She could've at least tried to find some extra clothes for him. She had to have some of Eugene's or Hiccups lying around.

A small beep let her know his temperature was taken. She pulled it from his lips and looked at the screen, her eyes widened.

"This can't be right." she mumbled brow furrowed.

"What?" He asked leaning forward to see.

She shook her head, "It must be broken, Ill get another one."

"What does it say?"

She laughed nervously, "it says 62 degrees."

He blinked and leaned back, "No that's right."

"No it's not." she laughed nervously.

He gave her a bored look, "Yep, thats normal."

"Umm, no its not! Your blood vessels should be narrowing, your body would try to retain heat to your heart so your lips be would be blue and your fingers and toes. You-You would be shivering, hell at 60 degrees you should be going into hypothermic shock!" her wide eyes and babbling words helped him believe that she was as genuine as she says.

"If-if you are at 60 degrees you are over 30 degrees below whats normal." Her hands were shaking slightly. His brow furrowed as she wobbled a bit.

"Wow, you guys run hot." he commented, slowly standing up. She was starting to worry him. He was sure she was not supposed to be swaying like that.

"How…how can you..?"

He shrugged, "I guess you can call me special."

To prove his point he bent down and touched a forgotten mug on the coffee table. With a simple tap against the porcelain cup, the tea inside froze over, only leaving the tea tag out and stuck to the side. Her eyes widened. She hesitantly reached down and touched the hard surface of liquid with a shaky finger. She let out a forced laughed, there was that swaying again.

"Oh. Okay, umm…so y-your temperature is below average because y-you're m-magic…" her bottom lips trembled a bit. Magic…she found a man who could freeze things.

"Well I wouldnt call it mag— whoa!"

He caught the blonde before her head connected with the coffee table. He sighed.

"Who was helping who now..?" he mumbled to himself looking at the woman who fainted in his arms.

He had watched the blonde woman sleep for a moment, admiring how soft her skin looked, how pink her cheeks were. No one like him had a real tan, most never saw the sun to get tanned. But hers was a light one that made her glow. Small freckles sprinkled her cheeks and pixie nose, her eye lashes cast shadows on high cheek bones. Her hair was a waterfall of gold, surrounding her like a halo. He had stopped himself from touching it to see if it was just as soft as it looked.

Instead he occupied his time with the photos on the far wall. She had many pictures frames, large and small, filled with smiling people. He had never really seen a picture with people happy before. At last he couldnt remember ever seeing one. Many of them had a tall man in them, his brown hair was kind of long for a male. He had forest green eyes much like hers with a lot more freckles. He was a doctor too. Others had pictures of another man, usually held tightly with hands together and faces close. He held more of an angular face than the other doctor, with facial hair. He couldnt find a single picture of an unhappy person. He wondered if this was what it was like outside of the facility for everyone. Or was it just her. There was a photo of her, younger, smaller, sitting on an older mans shoulders with an older woman holding him.

He couldnt remember his parents.

A small feminine groan pulled him from his reverie.

"What…what happened?" she asked, running a hand through her hair. He walked over and sat on the arm rest of the couch,

"You fainted."

"I dreamt it all?" she asked. He chuckled darkly,

"Nope, still magic."

"Oh." she said, her shoulders slumped. He looked at her dejected face, all the hope to help him was washed away with doubt. He felt guilty. He hadnt felt this way in…well, ever. He sat down by her feet and cross his legs.

"Want to see something neat?" he asked with a small smile. She looked up at him, green eyes regaining a light of wonder. She nodded.

He closed his eyes, holding out a closed hand to her, palm up. The air around him chilled a bit, causing goose bumps to rise on her skin for being so close to him. She watched in wonder as he opened his eyes, his ocean blue eyes had turned unreal icy sapphire. He uncurled his fingers and a snow colored butterfly lifted from his palm. She gasped, a small smile on her face as she watched it rise higher and higher. It looked so real yet left a trail of small snow flakes in its wake.

She reached up with a single finger and touched it lightly. It burst in confetti of tiny snowflakes, falling on warmed skin and blankets. She couldnt help but giggle, palms out in hopes to catch the melting water in her hands. She looked at him, that light he had seen was back.

"You are magic.." she giggled.

He smiled back and cocked his head to the side, "No just enhanced."

Before she could ask him to explain, a yawn hit her unexpectedly. She looked down at her watch and gasped.  
>"Oh my gosh its four in the morning!" He waited to be blamed for the time spent on his needs but instead she stood, and picked up her mug, "You must be so tired! I totally lost track of time."<p>

He was continually shocked by the woman. He was never cared for in his life, not like this. Bandaged wounds and stitches from experiments gone wrong. SImple comforts like a cot to sleep on and a shower. But he had never had someone worry over him, someone showing genuine concern for him. It was odd and he was unsure how to react to it. So instead he stood awkwardly and watched her scurry around the place like a mouse, putting away her things and throwing the extra blankets she had into a closet in the hall way.

"Come on, you can use the extra bedroom," she said with a smile and motioned for him to follow her. He did so and was led down a warmly lit hallway filled with paintings and more picture frames. She had a lot of those.

Rapunzel opened the extra bedroom door. It was painted a light blue, the bed was moderately sized with white sheets and a blue matching light blue comforter. There was a small dresser and night stand, both were white with silver knobs. A full length mirror stood on the other side of the room wit the dresser. There were various candles and a tasteful decorations here and there.

"I got this place knowing I'd have my best friend over most of the time. He usually stays in this room so I made it more manly looking." she giggled. She walked to the dresser and was happy to find a pair of grey cotton sleeping pants hidden in the corner of a drawer. "Here these should fit you. Hiccup should be about your height and waist size."

"Hiccup?"

"My best friend."

He didnt think he had friends before. He took the pants from her. She walked to the door before turning and smiling at him. He was still slightly shocked by his surroundings, by her. He wondered if he had fallen into some alternate universe. Was this normal? Was this what having a home felt like? Being surrounded by happy pictures, having friends over, having the freedom to choose what he wanted?

"The guest bathroom is right down the hall on the left. Ill have a toothbrush and a towel ready for you tomorrow okay?"

He was at a loss for words so he simply nodded.

"Goodnight…" she paused and closed her mouth with a snap, "Hmm…I just realized I never got your name."

"Subject 5742."

"What?" she turned her head to the side, her brow furrowed in a way that made him nervous to repeat himself. He cleared his throat.

"Thats my name." he replied softly, "Subject 5742."

"Thats not a name, silly." she tried to keep the look of concern off her face as she gave him a small comforting smile. Dread filled her gut and she was thankful that she had brought here, that she had found him before those men did.

He huffed, "Well thats all I got."

She looked thoughtful for a moment, her eyes looking him over. A grin broke across her face, "I know! How about Jack? Like Jack Frost from the Christmas movies?"

Honestly he had no idea what she was talking about.

She noticed the look and shook her head, "Sorry, Jack Frost is the spirit of snow and winter. He's known to leave behind frost on peoples windows and makes it snow in the winter time. Hiccup would say that he originated from Norse and Anglo-Saxon mythology but I just know him from the Christmas song." she giggled.

He looked at the joy on her face and smirked at the suggestion, "I like that."

She grinned, "My name is Rapunzel. If you need anything my room is right across the hall. Goodnight Jack." she said and with a tinkling giggle she left the room, closing the door behind her.

He stood in the blue room. The closed off air had turned cold from his presence and he watched as frost began to create fern like patterns on the large arched window. He smirked.

"Jack Frost, huh?"

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	3. Chapter 3

The blonde hummed lightly, moving about the kitchen with a graceful air. Her feet were bare on the hard wood floors, dressed in her short yellow sleeping shorts and pink tank top despite the cold. She always kept her bed huddled with blankets and she had turned on the heater for the morning…well now almost afternoon. She didnt get to bed till at least 4:30. Luckily she was used to the lack of sleep, graveyard shifts at the hospitals forced her body to work with minimal sleep. She placed another waffle on a large plate. She wasnt sure what kind of food Jack would like but she had a feeling he'd never had a good breakfast. Heck, he didnt seem to have much at all.

She smiled to herself before checking her eggs. Her humming was a soft melody that rang through the house, every once in awhile shed softly sing a verse. She took out a bottle of syrup and a couple of plates for them both.

Her peaceful morning was horribly interrupted by a series of rapid knocks on her door. There was only one person who knocked like that at 11am. She turned closed her waffle iron before jogging to the door. Yanking it open, she glared at the brown haired imposer.

"Will you stop that?" she said, her voice a loud whisper, "Youre gonna wake people up!"

Hiccup crossed his arms, his eyes gave her his answer. She moved aside for him to come in, "No one is sleeping at this time, Punz. So what happened to texting me last night, huh?"

Rapunzel rolled her eyes and followed behind him.

"I forgot, I—-" she paused, making her way back to her waffle iron, "I, uh, kinda ran into someone.."

Hiccup leaned against the counter, his white button up and tie wrinkled slightly under his crossed arms. His green eyes darkened, his brows furrowed beneath his bangs. He had grown up since med school, gotten taller in the last six years and filled out more. His face had lost the softness it once had, replaced with strong jaw lines and angles. His freckles no longer took over his face, instead most had faded out. He filled out the doctors jacket well, yet still looked at her like he had years ago.

"Rapunzel, what happened?" His voice stern. She flinched, didnt have to turn around to know the unhappy look on his face. She stacked another Belgian waffle on the large plate, making that the fifth one. Hiccup stared at the tower of large waffles and tilted his head. That was odd.

"I ran into this..this guy who needed help, so I helped him out. You know, nurse stuff. It was just uh lending a helping hand." she laughed awkwardly, unplugging her waffle iron.

She hated lying to Hiccup but she wasnt really lying! She was just omitting some parts of the story. She would tell him when she knew more about the situation herself. She did help someone, but couldnt tell the guy that she had brought him home! He would have a fit. She chewed on her bottom lip nervously.

"I just went to bed and forgot check my phone." she turned to him and smiled. Not a lie. Her phone was still bundled up in her jacket from the night before, tucked away next to the coffee table.

His green eyes narrowed in suspicion. As soon after fingers found a stray piece of blonde hair, he knew it.

"And?"

"And what?"

"Something else happened. What was it?"

"Nothing you need to worry about, Hic. I got it under control." She said walking past him, placing the large pan of scrambled eggs next to the plate of waffles.

"Do you—do you hear yourself? The fact that you said that means you have nothing under control!" He said, his hands animatedly working together with his words. She gave him an irritated look and poured herself a cup of tea. "It's like saying 'nothing bad is going to happen' and some thing bad happens. We've seen the movies, Punz, cinema can only fake so much."

"Oh you sound ridiculous!" She rolled her eyes, "I helped someone out okay? You don't have to worry so much."

"I worry just enough, thank you."

—-

He heard…birds.

No that was wrong. There were no windows in his cell, no access to the outside without going through the separate labs and security. They didnt have birds in subject holding. And they didnt have food cooking. Oh god, what was that smell?

Sapphire eyes blinked open, the sunlight shone into the room and illuminated the blue and whites around him. He sat up, squinting with left over sleep. This wasnt right. His pale hands touched the softness of the blankets over him, the down feathers flexed under his touch. The sheets at the facility are thin and almost stiff with bleach. Everything came rushing back and a feeling of relief washed over him. He had escaped.

A smile broke over his lips, his eyes filled with a light that had long disappeared. This was his room. Or the one Rapunzel let him use. Rapunzel, the blonde nurse who found him. It was like a dream, like he was going to wake up and find himself in an experimentation room. He let himself fall back onto the bed and let out a chuckle when the soft mattress bounced, the pillows flopped. The air was cool around him, his door was closed so the windows and mirror kept a soft frost.

He took a deep breathe. Instead of the smell of bleach and chemicals, the smell of crisp cotton and warm bread filled his nose. He smiled and pushed himself off the bed and made his way to the door.

He could hear faint voices down the hall, too busy rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He stretched and ran a hand through messy white hair. He hadnt slept so well in a long time.

"I just made sure he was okay!"

"By stopping at 11 o clock at night in an ally?! If that's not the smartest thing you've done I don't know what is!"

"Ugh! He was hurt and I had to make sure he-he didn't have hypothermia or a heart attack or something!"

"Than you call 911 not play doctor with a man you don't know!"

"I am a doctor!"

"At a hospital not in an alley for strangers."

"I wasnt going to…just….leave him…to…" Her green eyes were wide, looking past her friend. Hiccup watched in confusion as a pink blush rose to the blondes cheeks.

"What are you looking at—" he turned around and couldn't help but let his mouth fall open.

In the doorway of the kitchen was another man, one he had never seen before. His skin was pale, stretched over lean ropes of muscle of his bare chest. He was close to Hiccups height with a bed head of white locks. Every muscle bunched and pulled as he shameless stretched before his small audience. The movement of his torso only brought attention to the way Hiccups forgotten pair of draw string sleeping pants hung low on his hips. It allowed the 'v' indentations of his pelvis to point out the every obvious fact that he had nothing between him and those pants.

"Is this…all for me?" He asked looking at the spread of waffles, bacon and eggs, even warm toast. It looked all too good to be true. He felt his mouth water.

Rapunzel was the first to snap out of her stupor, her blush still burned her cheeks and tip of her ears. She was just glad that he had waited to come out of the room after he woke up. She wasnt sure she could survive the embarrassment of seeing him with morning wood in those thin pants. Despite being a nurse, having an attractive man in her house was much different then physical exams.

"Yes!" She handed him a large plate, "Go ahead and help yourself. I made a lot so have as much as you'd like."

They smiled at each other.

"What is going on…?" Hiccup said, his suspicion and confusion evident on his face.

Rapunzel smiled awkwardly, her body tense, "Hiccup, this is Jack."

"Jack." He repeated, raising an eyebrow at the male.

Jack gave a nod and proceeded to stack food on his plate. He eyes were on the food he's never had, taking in the smell and textures like a starving animal.

Hiccup watching the guy for a moment, eyes calculating. Rapunzel nervously played with her hair in the silence. It only took a minute or two for Hiccups eyes to widen,

"Oh my god, you brought him home!" He yelled. Jack and Rapunzel jumped at the outburst. Jack looked at Rapunzel, something in his eyes made her heart break. It looked as if he was waiting go be reprimanded or thrown out. She hated that look to be in a grown mans eyes.

"Ignore him, Jack, you can go ahead and eat." She said and sat him down at the counter. She placed the syrup and a glass orange juice in front of him. Blue eyes watched Hiccup, an innate suspicion was written on his face. Hiccup reflected the look, both men sized each other up over the bar counter.

"You said you helped someone last night, not housed him." Hiccup gave Rapunzel a look as she grabbed her own plate to serve herself.

"I found him barely breathing, freezing, with all his clothes gone." She said, giving him a look of her own, this one filled with concern, "I couldn't just leave him there."

"Why didnt you just call 911?" He asked running a hand through his brown locks.

"It was…complicated."

"What was complicated about calling someone with the equipment to help him instead of putting yourself in danger?"

Jack lifted his head from his food for a moment. He resented that statement.

"He was being chased." She mumbled, taking a seat at the counter next to her patient.

Hiccup felt like he was in a living nightmare. The nightmare of his best friend being too nice for her own good and getting taken advantage of. She had been sheltered most of her life until she was accepted into med school. Her step mother was a real bitch and had to have a restraining order put on her just to keepher from kidnapping her own stepdaughter. Rapunzel was the sweetest, most caring nurse in the program. It took her a good year before she could stop tearing up every time she had to give a shot or cause a little pain. Now that same impressionable girl was sitting next to a stranger she found naked in an alley after being chased.

"Rapunzel!" Hiccup ran around the counter and yanked her from her chair. She let out a surprised yelp and found herself behind a tall broad Hiccup. "He could be dangerous! He could be a drug dealer or a thug or-or-a murderer!"

Jack had already been on his feet the moment the unknown male had placed a hand on Rapunzel. The tension was thick between the men, both glared at each other. Back straightened, chest out; muscles were bunched with anticipation. He didnt know who this guy was other than his saviors so called friend, but he wasnt about to let the only hope in his life be man handled in front of him.

"Hiccup! He had every chance last night to hurt me and he didnt!" She tried to push herself from around the taller form of her friend but with no avail.

"That just means he enjoyed free room and board before he did anything." Hiccup sneered. Jack took a step toward them, the floor boards under his feet began to get cold.

"Let her go." Jack said, icy blue eyes him.

Rapunzel recognized the change of color in his irises from last night. It happened as he was making the ice butterfly. Oh no. She did not want Hiccup to find out like this. She wanted time to think about it all, time to talk to Jack about his past and try to put things together. She pushed Hiccups out stretched arm, but he turned and caught her, stopping her from running to Jack.

Jack smirked darkly and stomped down his right bare foot, the sound of crackling ice followed. Before she could even gasp at the sensation, Hiccup yelped as his work shoes slipped from under him. Ice had formed thickly over one of the long wood floor boards directly under the doctors feet. Hiccup hit the ground with a hard thud, his back and head connecting with the cold unforgiving floor.

"Oh my god, Hiccup are you okay?" She cried and kneeled next to him.

Jack's smirk of victory fell and replaced with annoyance at the lack of wonder and thanks you's from the girl he was trying to help. He at least expected something a little more appreciative. He thought it was impressive. Instead he watched her fuss over her fallen comrade, helping him sit up and looked for bruising on his head. He fought the urge to roll his eyes at her. The guy was fine. He could've done worse. Like freezing him solid.

"What the hell was that?" Hiccup hissed, batting away Rapunzel hands from his head. She looked down at the frosted over floor board, the ice was thick enough to be noticed from the other boards. Hiccup followed her eyes and his widened.

"Umm…I know this may be a bit hard to believe…"

"You're floor board has ice on it."

"About that, you see Jack…he can, well—"

"There's a single floor board with ice."

"It wasnt the floor boards it was Jack."

Hiccup looked at her with a completely straight face, "Jack froze your floor board."

Rapunzel smiled, playing with a strand of hair nice more. A nervous habit she had yet to break. She looked up from her place on the floor, pleading for Jacks help. The man only shrugged and went back to his food.

"Jack is…special."

"Because he froze your floor board." Completely straight face intact.

"Yes." She said, "Among other things."

Jack smirked as he took a drink of his orange juice. He stood up from his chair and crouched down in from of Hiccup. Without warning he tossed the orange juice toward his face. Hiccup put his hand up and flinched as did Rapunzel. As the liquid was air born, jack touched the end of the trail with his finger. The orange juice froze before falling between Hiccups legs with a thud. Both regular humans stared at the icicle, orange tinted underneath the sparkling sheen of cold. The color from Hiccups face drained, the corner of his mouth twitched. Shocked green eyes met cocky blue.

"Boo."

The doctor fell back to the floor with a thud.

Jack blinked, "Is fainting a normal thing for you people?"

_Smack_.

"Oww." The ice prince rubbed the back of his abused head.

Rapunzel glared at him.

—-

"So you can control ice?"

"Yep."

"And your name isn't Jack."

"Nope."

"What was it again?"

"Subject 5742."

The tension had lessened since Hiccup had regained consciousness. Jack begrudgingly helped Rapunzel get him to the couch. They had both finished eating and showered before he began to stir. The blonde had dressed in a pair of skinny jeans and a v-neck white sweater, her blonde hair was still damp. She had found Jack a pair of Eugene's jeans and a old plain grey Nike t-shirt. The jeans had to be held up by a belt and the shirt was almost too short but it would do for now. She was always in a mix of joy and heart break to see him happy about the simplest of things. The way he felt the towel she left him, how he smelled the shampoo and body wash. He had looked at himself in the mirror for a long time, she wondered if he had ever worn jeans before.

Hiccup adjusted the ice on the back of his head, he didnt think his headache was from his fight with the floor. He had called into the lab that he was going to be late back from his lunch. It was stuck in some movie, some book, that was the only explanation for the man sitting in this room.

"That's why I couldn't just leave him in the alley." Rapunzel explained, running a pink comb through her gold locks, "Those men were after him for a reason and I couldn't let them take him back! He didn't even have a name, Hiccup."

"I'm right here you know."

Rapunzel blushed, "Sorry."

Hiccup checked his watch and stood up, moving the ice from his head before touching the sensitive spot with a wince.

"I've got to get to work." He said. Hiccup looked at the coffee table before looking at Jack. He handed the plastic bag of ice to the man, sitting it in his pale palms. "Here, dont let it melt on the carpet."

Jack glared.

"I don't know what's going on but Ill be back tonight. Ill try to.."

He watched as the bag of ice lifted off the mans hand, hovering just over his palm. The ice inside has began to break apart and shift into what looked like a personal snow globe….

"…wrap my head around this."

Rapunzel looked at Jack who had the most mischievous look on his face. She could he was enjoying making Hiccup feel uncomfortable. The nurse stood and walked her best friend to the door, hoping that he would actually help her figure out what to do next. She was so wrapped up in the sheer wonder and adventure of everything that was Jack that she didnt realize that what he stood for meant more than what she could probably handle by herself.

"Are you going to tell Eugene?" He asked, opening the door. She shrugged.

"I don't know, I don't think it's good to tell too many people about him."

"He said 5742, Rapunzel." He looked into sad empathetic green eyes. "That might mean…"

"There are more, I know."

Hiccup pulled her into a warm hug on the front porch, her damp blonde locks smelled of vanilla and flowers. She wrapped her arms around him as well, allowing him to rest his chin on top of her head. He smelled of fresh cotton and pine. There was a couple moments of silence, the embrace was enough to warm the part of her soul that needed lifting. He was the only constant in her life, the only thing that was immovable and solid. He was there when her first patient had died, he was there when she broke down in the stairway after a four car collision. He was there to hold her just like this.

"I'm all he's got, Hiccup." She whispered into his shirt, "I can't just not help him."

"I know, Punz, I know." He mumbled back, "I just want you to be careful."

She laughed lightly, pulling back to look up at him. He could see the unshed tears in her eyes. Whatever she saw in this Jack guy got to her. He could see how serious she was about this. It was that seriousness she had when it came to kids and saving people. He just wished that he didnt have this bad feeling that whatever was going on was much bigger than either of them realized.

"I will. Promise." She said, pulling a smile to his handsome face, "Now get to work before they start calling me."

"You'll be at work tonight right?" He asked.

She nodded, "Yeah, I'll let you know when I leave."

"No more strange men?"

"Only got one bedroom." She giggled with a playful shrug. He rolled his eyes and ruffled her hair.

"See you later."

"Bye."

Rapunzel watched him walk back to his car before closing the door. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"You guys are close, huh?"

The blonde jumped in surprise, turning around to see Jack leaning against the wall of the entry way. She placed hand over her beating heart and smiled at him. Eugene had a larger upper body build, leaving his jeans needing to be held up on the swimmers body that was Jack. The t-shirt hunger his arms and upper chest before falling over his torso barely hitting the top of the jeans. If he stretched his arms up, everyone could probably see his abdominals. That only made her think of this morning. Oh man, bad thoughts.

"Yeah, we've known each other for a long time." She replied, pushing her hair behind her ear, "Did you have friends from…wherever you came from?"

Blue eyes cast down, a hand ran through white hair, "At the facility? No, not really. I only saw a couple others, but every subject was separated depending on their abilities. I was mostly alone."

Rapunzel watched him twist a small snow flake around his hand, giving himself something to look at with those haunted eyes besides her. She felt her stomach tighten, her heart clench at his words. His voice was so hollow, so lonely. She decided right then that she would be his Hiccup. She would be his constant, his immovable light house that he could hold on to.

Without a second thought, she stepped into his arms and hugged him close. The top of her head barely came up to his chin, his body tensed at the contact. He looked down at the blonde, his senses were assaulted with vanilla and fresh flowers, her body bloomed warmth against his chest. He hesitantly placed his arms around her. He didnt really recall a time someone had hugged him, but he knew the motion. It was engrained in his memory, in his genetic make up, to understand that this was an action of companionship, of comfort.

"Am I doing this right?" He mumbled into her hair.

She giggled, "Yeah, Jack, its perfect."

She took another moment, kind of enjoying the way his cool skin felt against hers. She pulled back, her hands resting at the crook of his arms. Her smile lit up across her face, the room around her seemed to brighten to his amazement. He couldn't help but smile back.

"Ready to go shopping?"

"Shopping?" He raised an eyebrow, "For me?"

"Yep, today will be our first adventure! We're going to the mall." She pat his chest lightly before spinning on a heel and headed to her bedroom. He watched her sway her hips, her excitement barely contained in her clumsy stride. It took a moment, after she had walked into her room to finish getting ready, that it hit him all at once.

He looked at the door, a feeling of nervousness and anticipation swirled in his gut.

For as long as he could remember, last night was the first night he'd ever stepped out of the facility.

For the first time in his life, he felt free.

Review...keeps me writing ;)


	4. Chapter 4

Whatever he was expecting, it surely was not this. His short-lived victory run was merely a taste of the freedom what was possible. Even then he was focused so much on just getting as far away from the facility as possible, he wasn't paying attention to his surroundings. Now he wasn't being chased and for some reason he couldn't stop the way his heart beat fast with excitement, his eyes reflected in the windows of her small car, the wonder was as plain as day. They had left the small housing development and he was shocked to see people walking around without a care in the world. He had never seen so many people in so many colors, at least he doesn't remember if he ever did. The buildings were of all different shapes and sizes just like its people, the sun glinting off the windows and metal. He felt like he was in a different world.

His world only had two types of people: Doctors and subjects. Subjects were required to wear plain grey unless they were in their sessions in which attire was adapted accordingly. The doctors all wore black suits under white jackets. Some doctors wore a light green outfit, masks over their mouths. He knew he was in bad shape if he ever saw those doctors. The facility was mostly colored white, filled with plastic, glass and metal. Everything was wiped clean and sterilized, the smell of chemicals and bleach were the prominent scents.

All he knew were doctors and patients.

All his colors consisted of shades of grey.

But now, everything was vibrant.

Rapunzel tried not to keep looking at the boy, trying to focus on the road but it was hard. She could see the pure childlike awe in his gaze, the way his smile didn't leave his face. She couldn't help but giggle when he pressed his forehead against the window as a man his age walked by with a large great dane on a red leash. He was fascinated by everything and it made her really look at the world she lived in.

She was so used to everything, to the city and the lights. To the ability to go to work, come home, be with friends and love, that she disregarded the idea that there could be one person in this city who had no idea what it was like to have choices. Her heart seemed to squeeze in her chest at the thought, and despite her discomfort of the cold she rolled down his window for him.

November was full of colors, autumn had gone finger-painting its browns and gold's over the trees and streets. He had never really seen the seasons. He knew what they were supposed to look like, just like he knew what different foods were and what a hug was. Some time in his life he was introduced and taught these things but he had no images, no memories of those times. All of this was familiar yet so far away.

The light shifted and the two were incased in darkness for a moment as she drove into a building. The building had cars everywhere, parked in wait for their people. She parked her small blue Toyota in the mall's parking garage and stepped out. Jack took that hint and followed suit.

He could feel the cold asphalt under his bare feet, the texture was new to him but the temperature was nothing. He smiled and walked over to Rapunzel who grinned back.

She didn't like the fact that he had no shoes on, but the shoe department was their first stop. She had to keep telling herself that the cold didn't bother him like it did the rest of them. He seemed completely at home in the 50 degree weather, wearing a t-shirt and no shoes. She had a white pea coat and a knit hat to cover her ears, her hands deep in her pockets to keep them warm.

By the time they got to the mens shoe department, they had received multiple looks and employees asking if they needed help. She realized that the white haired male with no shoes seemed kind of odd but that didn't make him suspicious. Well, at least not to her.

"Do I have to wear these?" He asked, not liking the way his feet seemed cramped in a pair of cloth topped 'Vans' as she called them.

"Yes, so the sloes of your feet don't get hurt." She said, "Do they feel alright? Your toes hit the end?"

"Yeah they're fine." He stood from the small chair and jumped up and down. To his surprise his winter ability had frosted over the bottoms of the shoes creating small crystals on the red carpet underneath him.

He smirked to himself, yet the look in his eyes were almost sad.

"Okay then lets get you two more pairs, just in case." She turned to see him staring at his feet, the way his shoulders slumped a bit and his eyes glued to the shoes.

"You okay?" she placed a hand on his arm. He looked up at her in surprise before giving a reassuring smile in return.  
>"Yeah, just thinking." He replied.<p>

He helped her pick out a couple other pairs of shoes before they moved on to the next section of the department store. He kept a pair of black Converse on as they made their way around the racks of men's clothes.

It was much easier to pick out clothes then shoes. Jack enjoyed the different colors around him, picking out both t-shirts and long sleeved shirts before moving on to pants. Rapunzel had left him to pick out his own style while she had headed to the under garment section. She got several packs of boxers for the boy, most of them greys and blacks. She even threw in a blue pair with small snowflakes for laughs. Several packs of socks and some sleeping wear.

By the time she met up with him, he had already picked out at least six pairs of jeans, a hand full of shirts and even some beanies. She grinned at him; loving the fact he had seemed to purposely pick out different colors, plaids and styles. She was sure it was his own form of rebellion.

When all was said and done she spent a good amount of her last paycheck on the boy but she couldn't bring herself to feel bad. He looked to happy and carefree, it was hard to fault him.

"You hungry?" She asked him as they exited the department store and into the large mall area. His eyes widened.

"There's more?" he said in awe at the echoing sounds of people, the many lights and shops surrounding him. She giggled, adjusting the bags in her hands,

"Yep, lots more. And there's food upstairs if you want."

He grinned.

"You're such a guy." She laughed.

"Is that a good thing?" he asked, keeping pace with her as they headed to the escalator.

"Its not a bad thing. Only guys get so excited about food." She smirked at him. He shrugged, looking over the edge of the moving staircase at the people below. All seemed so happy with their families and friends. He looked down at Rapunzel and couldn't help the small smile on his lips.

He guessed this is what happiness felt like.

They ordered a couple of burgers and fries at the food court, sitting down among the other patrons of the mall. She watched as he proceeded to scarf down his food like he had starved that day when really he had only ate about three hours ago. He reminded her of Hiccup. He was always hungry too. Definitely a guy thing. Her mind wandered a bit, looking at the way he seemed to enjoy his food more than most.

"Umm, Jack?" she said, his blue eyes stopped people watching to look at her, "Can I ask you something…about where you came from?"

He seemed to slow down a bit, his eyes taking a hard edge before he nodded.

"What kind of food did they feed you?"

"Depended on what they wanted." He replied, "If I was scheduled for endurance or excessive movement, they fed me carbs and protein. Nothing was really flavored, nothing had real taste. Food served a purpose."

She felt her appetite leave her.

"What different meals did they give you?"

"It didn't change much, not for me at least. One time they gave me hot soup then took my temperature and took samples from my mouth."

"To see how your body reacted to the temperature difference."

He nodded, "Another time, they didn't feed me at all."

Her eyes widened, her heart plummeted.

"What? Why? What purpose does that serve?" she said, her voice was a mix of indignation and anger.

"They wanted to see how long I could go without food seeing that I'm not exactly normal." He replied, his tone was grim, "They checked my vitals and pushed me to use my abilities until I couldn't anymore."

"How long?"

"Could I use my abilities?"

"How long did they starve you?"

"35 days."

She closed her eyes, unable to look at him. She was disgusted. She wanted to rant and rave and cry but she couldn't. Not out in public because she was the only one who knew that this evil existed. Human experimentation was the lowest of the low. She knew that he had only ten more days or so before he would die from starvation. Only ten more days before he lost at least 30% of his body weight.

"Rapunzel?"

She opened her eyes and met his worried blue ones. She gave him a reassuring smile that she was fine and fought down her tears. She couldnt cry in front of him. She was supposed to be his safe house, his constant, she couldnt be the one being comforted. She took his hand in her small one for a moment,

"I'm sorry they did that to you." she said softly, her eyes shone with such empathy and kindness it almost left him breathless. He returned the gesture by grasping her hand in his cold grip.

There was nothing left to say. There was no way to make it all better, no magic in the world could take away all the things they they did to him but she could try to give him a life that he deserved. He was done eating now, his mind in a dark place that had destroyed his hunger and replaced it with bitterness. Rapunzel had gathered their things, giving him some to carry, as they moved on.

The silence was comfortable but left them wanting. Even the crowds of people couldnt fix the thoughts going through both their heads.

"You can go ahead and ask." he said. She looked at him for a moment before giving a small sigh,

"How did you in they're care?"

"I dont know." he said, he looked thoughtful, "All I remember is that one day I woke up and I was put in a holding cell. They told me my name was 5742 and that was it. I dont remember anything outside of the facility. I know things, simple worldly things like reading and writing, I know numbers and understand things that I dont remember ever having before."

She hummed in thought herself, her head was shifting through the possibilities, "So for all you know, you could have a family and a home somewhere?" she said.

Everything seemed to slow down all at once. His blue eyes met hers, wide with realization and hope. He could have a family. He could have parents and siblings. He could have a home he was taken from, a place that was his own. Someone had to be missing him right? But then why didny they come looking for him? If he had parents like hers, they would come looking for him right? He closed his eyes and held a hand to his head, a dizziness had set in.

"Jack, are you okay?" she asked, putting her warm hand on his forehead. He leaned into the sensation, not minding the fact that they stood in the middle of the walkway. "Do you need to sit down?"

"No, Im fine. I just..." he paused, "I never thought that I might have someone out in the real world waiting for me."

She smiled at him, cupping his face in her hands despite the different in height. Her hands were warm against his cheeks, her eyes gleamed at him,

"We'll find out together okay?" she said, "We're going to find out why you were there and who you were before they took you. I promise."

He looked at her with mild distrust still, a narrowing of disbelieving eyes. She pulled her hands out and held out her pinky to him,

"Pinky promise." she said, "I never break my promises."

Hes heard that before too. This idea of a pinky promise. A small childlike voice rang in his head but it was muffled and bleary. He held out his pinky to her and let her wrap hers around his.

"There. Its official."

She only had a couple more hours before she had to head to the hospital so they continued their day with a lighter heart. At least she thought so. As they visited different shops, getting him things like belts and shampoo, his mood seemed to darken. His body became tense the longer they walked. No matter what she said, he kept quiet and simply nodded to humor her. Her own mood soured at his change of demeanor. His eyes were no longer taking in the sights but instead keeping in front of them.

After an hour, Rapunzel couldnt take it anymore and headed to the car. Maybe she was asking too many questions. Maybe he didnt want to think about his past or problems. She ruined it just because of her stupid curiosity. She popped her truck, looking behind her to wear Jack had started slowing down.

"You can put the bags in here." she said with a forced smile. Jack walked up and placed the plastic bags inside next to her own bags. There as a moment he took, staring at the black space.

"Jack?"

"We're being followed." he said softly, brow furrowed.

Her eyes widened. She looked behind for a split second, she instantly noticed two large men standing by the elevator they had just come up. She turned back towards the truck, her eyes in front of her,

"How long?"

"Since we left the body works shop." he replied softly.

Thats why he had been so quiet and so focused. It her after all. Not that this situation was much better. Jack reached up and closed the truck with an echoing thump. As if on cue the sound of heavy foot steps started to come from behind them. Rapunzel looked up at Jack, the fear evident in her face but he gave her a smirk instead. For some odd reason that look, that simple gesture made her nerves calm a bit. As soon as they were close enough, Jack turned around, a smile on his lips and a glint in his eyes,

"What do I owe this visit?" he said with a playful tone, one had in his jean pocket. He had stepped forward so that Rapunzel was behind him.

The two men looked bigger in person, broader and taller. They both wore button up white shirts and black slacks, neither were phased by Jacks tone. One mans hand slipped into the front pocket of his suit jacket, the other reached behind him to his waist band. That nervous feeling came back ten fold. Rapunzel felt her palms get clammy as she gripped his t-shirt.

It wasnt like the movies. There was no natural instinct where the protagonist knew immediately how to protect herself. There was no script or stunt doubles. This was real. Their guns were real.

"Jack.."

"Subject 5742, you are to come with us." One man said, neither had moved their hands from their holding places. They were still considered to be out in public and a scene wouldn't be good for any of them.

The white haired boy tilted his head to the side, his messy hair flipped out of his face. His posture was relaxed and lithe, he acted as if he had not a care in the world. Yet his eyes held a dark sinister glint of mischief, his free hand idly making turning motions with his wrist.

"And I refuse?"

The other man stepped up, "Not an option."

"Too bad." Jack said with a shrug, "Lets have some fun then."

That same twirling wrist lashed out, a swirl of white snaked out and lashed at the first man. The gust of ice and wind sent him flying back, hitting a parked car with an audible crack. The alarm sounded like a scream, the other man jumped into action, pulling his gun form the waistband of his pants in a quick motion.

He open fire on the two of them. Rapunzel screamed, her voice lost in the mess of sounds that assaulted the parking garage. She ducked to the side of the car, using the metal body as a shield from any ricocheting bullets. Jack used the wind and jumped up just as bullets rained on him, he looked down and saw Rapunzel hiding. Good girl.

With another gush of wind, he was behind his attacker, his iced over Converse sliding on the crystalized asphalt like a skater. Rapunzel watched in awe as he tapped on the mans shoulders and just as the brute turned around, he covered the front of the pistol with his palm. Despite her knowledge of the boy, she couldn't help the audible gasp that left her lips, the panic in her nerves.

The gun froze over instantly, the fire power inside was inactive and left the gunman unarmed. Jack smirked,

"Ta-da."

The man doubled over as Jack placed frozen fist into his gut, taking the opportunity to shove the man back. The ice under his feet started to freeze over the tops of his boots, thicker and thicker until he was unable to move.

"Jack, behind you!"

The man of winter turned just in time as a needle headed straight for his exposed neck. He slipped just in time to the right, avoiding the stabbing motion. The man turned and glared daggers at his target,

"Lunar Corporation will not allow you leave, 5742." he hissed, it was obvious he was still banged up from the throw into the car, "They'll come for you."

Jack narrowed his eyes, his anger spiked. His eyes look on a icy glow. Twin pools of clear blue bore down on the injured man. Winds gust and swirled around him menacingly, ice formed and cracked the hard concrete underneath his feet. His hair wiped around as well as the end of his t-shirt. He looked like an angered god, his body rigid and shoulders squared in undefinable confidence. He lifted his chin in a deadly smirk.

"Let them come." he said, his hand held out with a fist towards the man, "Ive got something for them."

His hand opened, palm snapped towards the man. The attackers eyes widened, his mouth opened in a soundless scream before his body was incased in thick a thick ice with a gust of wind and crystal. Rapunzels eyes widened as she stood to her full height, taking in the the scene before her.

Jack let his hand fall, his icy blue eyes zeroed in on her before he let the winds die down, the ice crystals broke apart and fell like snow around him. Just as quickly as he became a weapon, he became a man. She watched him with worried eyes.

"Are you okay?" She asked softly, not sure to walk towards him or not.

He caught her hesitance and gave a small smile.

"Yeah, Im fine." he said, "Can we go home now?"

She smiled back, her nerves still fried from the ordeal, her emotions in turmoil over the man frozen solid in the middle of the parking garage. She knew that this would hit the news by that night and most likely he would be brought to her hospital. His body at least. She shuddered. She had never seen something so scary outside of movies and novels. Her hands still shook, her body still trying to respond appropriately.

"Yeah, lets go home." she said and walked back to the drivers side while he made his way to the passenger seat.

She started the car, it growled to life before she began to pull out of the space and avoiding the human ice sculpture standing tall just a few feet away. Nothing was said between them, either one knowing what to say to the other.

"I'm sorry."

Rapunzel blinked, her wild thoughts pushed away for a moment before she looked over at him, "For what?"

He leaned his head against the window, staring at the street.

"For scaring you."

She gave a nervous laugh. "You didnt scare me-"

"Yes I did." he said, his voice stern, "Dont...lie to me."

She gave a small defeated sigh, unsure how to proceed without letting him know all the insane things going through her head. All the possibilities, all the reasons why, every moment that she may have no analyzed enough. She wasnt even sure of anything anymore. She wanted to believe that people didnt experiment on other people, that torturing another human being wasnt possible. She wanted to believe that Jack was just a normal man, a normal man who needed help adapting. But none of that was the truth. People could be evil. People could be experimented on. And Jack was not a normal man. She wasnt helping his adapt anymore.

She was keeping him alive.

"You're right, I was scared." she said softly, stopping at a red light, "But I was scared because I have never seen that side of you before. I wasnt scared that you would hurt me, I was just afraid of what could happen."

"All of this is all my fault." he said, his voice took that hollow sound just like the other night, "I shouldnt have got you involved."

"Well its too late for that now. Im involved. And I made a promise. We're going to find out about your past and this Lunar Corporation, okay?" she said, placing a hand on his knee, "You have to trust me."

There was a moment that she was sure he was thinking of all the reasons why he should not trust a doctor, contemplating all the issues that came from trying to get information from a government facility, all the other people that would be coming after them. But when she felt his cool hand on top of hers, she gave a beautiful smile.

"I trust you."

A/N: Reviews help me write!


	5. Chapter 5

"Dr. Haddock?"

The name echoed in off the lab equipment. Glass and metal went undisturbed. The room was large, each part sectioned off by filing cabinets, monitors, machines, cryropreservation storage lesions and glassware. It was a kingdom of frozen humanity, data stored in microscopic DNA-encrypted cells. The shaggy brown head had the key to it all, knowledge and codes fed through years of training. His green eyes trained to see things often missed, decode complex shapes and activity in order to diagnose and proceed to next steps.

His head was an algorithm dipped in a medical dictionary, dusted with probabilities and topped with statistics.

"Dr. Haddock?"

The microscope under his hands, his eyes trained through magnifying lenses. He stared down at a glass slab, a glowing red glared back at him; it was shiny and spread apart. It's color was the color he knew too well. A color he examined everyday, its contents shifted and mutated depending on disturbed chemicals and fractured hormones. Sometimes it was just bad luck.

He knew red personally. It was a relationship he understood, numbers made sense. People didn't understand that human cells were like computer coding, all information hidden underneath microscopic cytoplasm; unhelpful blobs of mass and color to the untrained eye. He has dissected the human body from the inside out, with only scrapings of scalpels and inserting needles.

Red was familiar. Red was logical and understandable.

Gold was not.

"Dr. Haddock, you haven't taeken a single noet in half an hou'r."

Hiccup pulled back from the spec, blinking his eyes rapidly. The light from the microscope had begun a series of white spots in his vision. He looked over to his right, the Scottish accent had given away his intruder. She stood at a short height, her body hidden underneath blue scrubs and a white coat. The colors clashed with her barely bound mass of red curls by her hair ties, her bold blue eyes looked at him with a mix of annoyance and worry. A look she perfected.

She was a nurse in his wing if the hospital, taking samples from patients and collecting data and filing them away.

She scrunched her nose at him, waving a hand in front of his face.

"Lad, you're zone'n out on mae agaen."

He blinked out his rather creepy stare, running hands over his face.

"Sorry, Merida," he grumbled, "I just have a lot on my mind."

The sound of wheels being rolled towards him made him remove his hands from his face, his eyes met curious twin oceans. The woman had pulled a rolling chair in front of him and prompting turned it around and straddled it, leaning on the back of it with her forearms hanging off at the elbows. Her skin was decorated with tiny freckles as well as slashed across her nose. She gave him a smirk,

"Girl trouble?" She asked.

He sighed.

He had known Merida in med school as well. She was more interested in his field rather than just being a nurse in a hospital. She was smart and sassy, her attitude along with her temper was not exactly best bedside manner. But she was smart. Very smart. She was quick to learn and a sharp observer. They had gotten along well, his dry sarcasm and antisocial demeanor fit well with her boldness and socially awkward responses. He had a bit of a crush on her when they were doing their residency, but he never acted on it.

She was not exactly the type to like guys like him. She was athletic, took jogs before work and after. Her body was built like a well-oiled machine, toned muscle and soft skin. She spoke how she felt, her facial expressions were never faked. Her soul was as wild as her hair and he paled in comparison.

"Kind of." He replied, slouching in his chair a bit. "Only it's Rapunzel getting herself into trouble."

Merida knew Rapunzel. Hiccup talked about her a lot and the red head assumed they were dating at one point but was set straight by the blonde girl's suitors coming into the hospital to see her. Much like at the hospital, Rapunzel was well liked. It was hard to not like her with her candy sweet demeanor and bubbly infectious smile. The girl grew on her despite her initial dislike of the nurse. She was not one to feel sympathetic towards nurses who cried over stupid things. She hated nurses like that. But Rapunzel never cried for herself. She didn't manipulate the head doctors with her tears. She cried for her patients or for hurting them. Her empathy was tangible and the redhead wish more nurses were like her.

In all honesty, she sometimes wished she was like the blonde. She was everything Merida wasn't and the sinking lead in her stomach reminded her of that. The feeling was a sickly feeling, like a stomach ache only no medicine would help. There was no name for it, at least she couldn't point one out.

"The lass isn't exactly the type tae get int'a trouble."

"But she is the type to invite it." Hiccup replied bitterly. Merida tilted her head in confusion.

"Are you taeking about the mechanic?'

"Eugene?" He said and shook his head, "No, she made a new friend a yesterday. This guy is...down on his luck and she offered to help him out. We both know he has a bad past but she actually is letting him stay in her extra bedroom until we- he gets back on his feet!"

Merida shook her head, and gave him a knowing look.

"Tha does sound dumb, evn' fer the lass." She shrugged, "but not out'a of character."

Hiccup sighed once more, a reoccurring theme in his everyday life with Rapunzel in it. He adored the girl. She was his only true friend. When he started med school he had problems far beyond what most people thought. His problems stood outside of his intelligence, hanging in the balance between what was manly and what was not. His father was a burly man, large and strong in everything. While Hiccup grew up, he struggled to take pride in any accomplishment because his father's idea of an accomplishment was getting into fights and letting people know how manly he was. He had adopted this since Hiccup's mother had died.

Hiccup had grown with a chip on his shoulder, believing that he was weak and unworthy of most things including women. Ridicule by an entire family can only go ignored for so long before one starts to believe it. He had met Rapunzel in the locker area. She was leaning on the cool metal, her eyes red and cheeks puffy from her tears. He had talked to her, making her laugh and for the first time through her eyes he felt useful, he felt like a man. Every day since then she had continued to befriend him, more than he thought anyone would. She would bring him lunches and stay up with him on graveyard shifts. She would look to him for comfort, look to him for strength and in turn he looked to her for love and acceptance. With her, he felt invincible.

"That's the worst part. She not being a bad person, she's actually doing a good thing but she's also putting herself in danger! What if she gets hurt because of him? What if he isn't who he says he is?"

_'What if I lose her?'_ was the question he refused to let leave his lips.

"Hiccup, calm down. She's gon' tae be fine." The red head replied. She had the sinking feeling in her stomach again, that feeling she got when he looked like he did; when he spoke of Rapunzel in such a way. As if she meant the world. "You have tae let her do her own thi'ng. If you don', she'll just end up blam'n you."

Hiccup didn't know what but he looked at Merida's eyes and it seemed she always had the answers he needed. Merida was a big part of his career as well. She was always there when things got hard, always nearby when he just wanted to scream because he had to tell another mother that her child had sickle cell or needed a bone marrow transplant. She would put an arm over his shoulder or squeeze his hand. She stood tall for him when he couldn't and he allowed her to pull him back out of the darkness.

Red was familiar.

Red was logical.

"What should I do?" he asked. "I just let my best friend shack up with some random stranger?"

"Well, yeah! She's a gro'n ass woman, Hiccup." Her small hand reached out and smacked him upside the head, "Ya' can't be tellin' her whaut tae do."

He glared at her, "You're supposed to be reassuring me."

Merida smirked and shrugged, "Aye'm a nurse nout' a shrink."

His dejected look was enough to make her sigh.

She remembered when he was a resident, both of them were stationed on the same floor manned with pagers. She was surprised at him at first, expected him to gag at the sight of blood or fumble around the IVs. Instead she had begun to admire him. He was extremely intelligent and focused. While he was a bit clumsy with his words and tended to trip with all those skinny elbows and knees, he was a force to be reckoned with when he was intent on saving someone. He wasn't like the other men there. He accepted her help without indignation or spite. It didn't matter if she was a woman, he wanted to help people regardless of her gender.

He spoke to her as an equal even when he promoted. He wasn't there for the money or status. He was there because this is what he knew how to do. This was something that he excelled in and held in high regard. He had a big heart and she admired him for it. She never allowed her emotions to show. Her heart was encased in a wall in hopes that she would never allow herself to be looked down on or treated differently. Her entire life was filled with gender-biased people. Her mother wanted her to marry and pop out children, let a man take care of her. Her father and brothers ignored her cry for something more than a dress and an oven for that all they knew as well.

Hiccup let her seem him break down. He let her smile and be angry and didn't blame her hormones or 'time of the month'. Because he was different.

"How ab'ut this, Haddock?" she said, standing up and pushing the chair back to its place, "If things get bad wit' the new lad, we c'n convince blon'die have him crash aut my parents summer home. Ayt's an hour and a half drive out tae the lake. We us'aly rent it out but it shou' be vacant raet now fer repair."

A smile spread across thin lips, a set of white teeth shone in the mix of white light and glass just for her. Two emeralds gleamed back at her, a sparkle that rivaled the most beautiful gems she'd ever seen. He was no longer the lanky boy resident. He stood as man and took two long strides of powerful legs and picked her up in a swinging hug. He knew to be careful of the equipment, but his elation knew no bounds.

It was perfect! The guy had never had a place to himself and this way whatever was coming after the white haired weirdo wouldn't harm Rapunzel in the crossfire. Not if she was an hour and a half away.

"Hiccup! Yer a jack arse! Put mae down!" she yelled, holding onto him for dear life.

When he placed her on her feet, she glared up at him. Her face was flushed prettily so her freckles stood out even more on her small nose. Her red curls had come loose from their hold, pieces sticking out here and there. Hiccup smiled down at her cheekily.

"You're the best, you know that?" he said.

"Aye know, but if ya do that ag'n, I'll pummel ya." She growled.

Yet the butterflies in her stomach fluttered, and her skin warmed.

"Am I interrupting something?"

Both sets of eyes snapped to the intruder on their moment. Both ready to explain their less then professional closeness to a boss or supervisor but instead a small woman with a teasing smile on her face stood in the door way.

Rapunzel wore a set of pastel purple scrubs, her stethoscope hanging around her neck and her long gold hair up in a ponytail. She watched with giggling green eyes as the two moved away from each other quickly, both fixing themselves.

"Rapunzel," Hiccup said, relieved that it wasn't a higher up. "What are you doing in this wing?"

"Just wanted to check in that I got to work. I'm supposed to be off by midnight or so. You staying that long?"

Hiccup scowled. "No, I should be gone in a couple of hours. Why do you take these shifts?"

The blonde shrugged, "I only live down the street. I'll be fine."

"No more strays?"

"No more strays." Rapunzel giggled.

"So Eugene kno' abut' tha new roomie?" Merida said, heading out the door. Rapunzel took the opportunity to have someone to walk with and left Hiccup back to his work.

"No not yet." She said, thumbing the cool metal around her neck, "I don't know how to tell him without him going bonkers. We've been dating a year and a half now but I don't think he even trusts Hiccup sleeping over all that much."

There was that sinking feeling again.

"Well, its bet'er if you tell 'im before he walks in an' finds the guy. Now tha will be hard to expl'n." Merida chuckled at the humorous image that popped into her head.

"Yeah, you're right." The blonde sighed. They turned the corner, passing a nurses station before stopping at the elevator. Rapunzel pushed the down button.

"So yer not worried if hes steal'n stu'f while yer here?" Merida asked. Rapunzel blinked in confusion then shook her head with a confident smile.

"Nah. He really has nowhere else to go."

He had nowhere else to go.

Granted he should be used to having nowhere to go seeing that he had been locked up in a holding cell most of his life. Compared to that place, he was living the high life. Rapunzel had bought food before they got to the house, stocked up the cupboards and the refrigerator for him. He was stumped by the fact that he knew what the electronics around him were. He knew how to work a microwave and a stove, he knew what a blender was and a dish washer but he couldn't remember ever using one. It was like muscle memory. Like his subconscious was supplying him with the directions yet never allowing him to see the whole map.

She let him have free reign over her home, told him that he was welcome to anything he'd like. Such freedom should excite him and it did at first. He watched TV for the first time. Actual TV shows, not stimulates and recorded images for psychological evaluations. He made food and looked through her books. She had a lot of medical books on one side and the other was filled with fiction of all kinds. When she ran out of room she started to place the paper backs on top of the organized books. Some of them were romantic, others were dramatic or filled with supernatural beings and places.

After a couple hours or so of doing nothing but lounging, he had taken to exploring the house in a way he could not while she was here. It was the only adventure he would probably get when she was gone. He had nowhere else to go but now that he had a taste of the outside, he wanted to just run around. But she told him that was risky until they tried to figure out who was exactly after him.

So instead he began to go through the white organized storage boxes on her wall, each had a place in a square cubby in the large white shelving. He took down one box and thumbed through it. It was filled with more photographs only these were older. Pictures of a blonde toddler with a smiling pair, others were of a small dog and some were of places they had went. A family. He didn't have a family. At least he didn't think so. A family like hers would've tried to find him. They would've saved him. He closed the box and replaced where it had once been.

It was like playing a game, guessing which box had what it based on how accessible it was. He chose another relatively close, just a box left of where he stood. By its accessibility he guessed it was pens? Paper?

He opened the box and smiled to himself.

He was good.

Inside was an assortment of pens and pencils, all sharpened and smoothed with color. Each looked expensive and used carefully. He could tell that she used these when she was at her easel. He wondered where he would find a sketch book or any of her art. He closed the box once more and returned it to its rightful place. The hard wood under his feet was cool and the house itself had gone down a couple degrees as he made himself at home in her living room. He was dressed in his night clothes, the same cotton grey pants with no shirt. The cold never bothered him, obviously, so the night chill went unnoticed to the man.

He looked around and noticed another box above him to the right. He reached up and grabbed it, pulling it down to rest on his forearm. He opened the lid, his blue eyes widened. The box fell to the floor with a clatter of plastic and glass on the wood surface. He moved back from the fallen pieces, the box lay haphazardly on its side. His hands shook, his blood rushed in his ears. It took a moment before his backward retreat, unable to tear his eyes away, had his knees given out. Terror filled his senses and all he wanted to do was to run but he couldn't run from the onslaught of images, of memories. There was no running from his own mind.

He stared at the capped needles that lay before him, small bottles glass bottles with penetrable lids still rolled back and forth.

_He was hot. _

_He felt like fire ran through his veins, his heart only pumping gasoline through his system with every beat it took. His lungs burned yet he could still let out a terrible scream that left his throat hoarse and shook the walls around him. His arms and legs were bound by leather straps to the bed, the large lights over his head hung to illuminate the doctor's handy work._

_A needle had been slipped into the main vein in his arm, the chemically enhanced drugs coursed through him like tidal wave of embers burning away at his blood cells. He through his head back and let out another scream of pain, his muscles clenched, his body began to try to secrete frost but instead it only shook from the effort. Sweat beaded at his skin, his shirt clung to him and his slick palms gripped the metal railing of the bed under him. _

_He opened his eyes, his pupils so large only a small ring of blue could be seen. He could see moving visions of doctors around him, the light reflecting off their coats and making the forms shift where they stood. Colors mixed into other colors, painting his vision in a mist of warped images that he could not make clear. _

_"Veins seem to be protruding. Muscles and tendons along arms and chest experiencing visible spasms. Pupils have dilated, vision seems to be unfocused. Heart rate has slowed to only 90. Blood pressure lowered to only 80. Frost bite starting to set in on along appendages."_

_He could hear them. He could hear the doctor like an echoing voice in the back of his head. He looked down at his bound hands and watched as his skin began to turn black at a rapid pace. Eyes widened. He couldn't feel his fingers or toes. Another spasm of pain racked his body and he let out another scream, tendons and muscle tissue fought against the cocktail of chemicals that were forced into his body._

_"What-" he voice shakily, his lips turning blue, "What did you—ah!—do to me…?"_

_His words came out in pained pants, his breath short. His body shook again, his veins turning black as they crawled up his exposed arms and toward his heart._

_A man in all black stepped forward. He couldn't see a face, couldn't make out anything among the shifts forms and pulsing lights that fucked with his eyes. But he saw the blackness against the white of the room, the white of the doctor's lab coats. He could see a black suit and horribly grey eyes that loomed over him like a shadow. _

_"I wondered how cold you actually run, 5742." A voice, baritone and sinister with a hint of an accent caressed his ears. "You see, I want to know how destructible you are."_

_Another scream. Another spasm. More black paths of wicked tree branches etched across his impossibly pale skin, blooming like a sickness over his body. The pain was almost too much. He was surprised he had not passed out yet but he had a feeling that whatever they put in his system was meant to keep him awake. _

_"There is nothing like testing cold with liquid nitrogen."_

_He didn't know what that was. He didn't know how to respond. His tongue felt heavy, his mouth was dry. His entire body was rebelling against the burning sensation from inside himself. He could feel his temperature drop and that tingle he got under his skin begin to grow. He could feel the metal under his fingers freeze over, surprised gasps and yells echoed in the room and the man in black disappeared. He could hear glass cracking, things shattering, metal creaking, and liquid falling onto floor before freezing over. _

_He had gone into a seizer. _

Jack stared at the needles before him. The floor beneath him have frozen over, frost bit at the wood making it creak and cry out.

He had woken up in that same room after his seizer. The entire room was filled with icicles, massive towers of jagged ice that surrounded the walls like a prison. His bed had frozen over, the leather and metal clips were solid. All the glass beakers and monitors were broken and shattered. Show fell from the icicles on the ceiling. He was surrounded by snow and frost, a couple of bodies unable to get out of the room soon enough stained the whiteness crimson.

For a moment he had forgotten that she was one of the beings he feared. She was a part of the people that used him as their lab rat, a human push pin for chemicals and diseases just out of pure curiosity. To people like her, he was a tool to be dealt with not a human being. That's why she had needles and bottles of chemicals in her home. God, his hands still shook. He needed to get out. Get out. Run!

He stood to his feet shakily, body trembling with a fear he didn't think existed. When he escaped, he thought once he was away from it all, once he was no longer under their control, he would be free. He didn't realize that he might have been physically free from their rule but they still had his head. They still had injected enough pain and suffering to scare not only his body but his mind. Because deep down he knew that Rapunzel was not like them, but everything inside him wanted to fear her too. His brain told him that she had needles and chemicals and scalpels. Told him that she could just be another one of them, storing him away until they wanted him back.

He turned and ran. He didn't know where he was going, his vision was tunneled and his instincts pushed him. Safe. He needed to be safe.

Doors opened and his senses were flooded with the smell of warm honey and flowers.

Safe.

He walked into the dark room and found the source of the smell. His trembling body, abused with adrenaline and flashing images, fell into the large soft bed. Its sheets and springs folded under his weight, the smell assaulted his nose and he closed his eyes taking deep breaths. His body began to relax slowly. His long body of muscle and limbs lost the masculinity it once held and replaced it with the demeanor of a scared child. He pulled his knees to his chest, clutching a pillow to his body, face buried in the soft fabric.

He didn't smell bleach. He didn't smell copper or chemicals.

It was being wrapped in a garden, fresh honey dripped onto warm bread. It was what he smelled when he was close to her. It was what invaded him when he woke up and when he fell asleep. It was safe.

She was safe.

A/N: Reviews keep me writing! :)


	6. Chapter 6

The night dragged on with mixes of monitor checks and IV replacements. Rapunzel hadn't gone to see to Hiccup since she arrived and she missed him terribly. She missed working next to him like she had been the last couple of years, always able to see his smiling face or make jokes about the uppity nurses. Nights like this, when the hospital was asleep, she felt lonely behind her desk. She had filed everything, checked on her patients and even sang to a little girl so she went to sleep. In all honesty she was ready to sleep herself.

When it came time to clock out, it was already midnight. She stretched out her arms and back, sighing to herself as another nurse took her place. The blonde grabbed her coat and her bag, heading out the door. Hiccup had left awhile ago so she didn't bother to say bye. She felt the corner of her lips turn up, the excitement in her stomach rise as she made her way down the street. She had constantly thought of her new roommate, thinking of what he was getting himself into but mostly of the look of his face when he gazed at new things. On her spare time she had made a list of all the places to take him in the city. She was almost beside herself when she thought of going to the ice skating rink tomorrow before work. She giggled to herself. He would love it.

Her walk home was just as brisk as it was before. The fall had settled in and was preparing for winter, making the trees bare and the grass cold. She turned the corner of another block and her eyes met a familiar sight. She froze. Her hands shook in her jacket pockets.

Two large men in suits as well as a couple other smaller men were searching the area. The same block where she had found Jack. The same block where the other two men were looking for him. These men were all searching every ally, every store front, stopping every person with a photo. Not that many people were out at this time of night, but by the irritated looks she knew they had not just started.

She took a breath and kept walking, keeping her eyes down at on her shoes. She kicked herself for wearing her pastel scrubs today. There was no way she wasn't going to be spotted. Just as she approached the ally closest to her home street, a pair of black loafers blocked her path. She looked up until her eyes met dark brown ones. He looked older, yet had a young face. His hair was grey and his eyes a deep green. He had broad shoulders with defined arms and a very military stance. His mouth was set in a deep line yet he looked more irritated than evil.

"Good evening ma'am." His light scottish accent caught her off guard. "You haven't by chance seen this man have you?"

He held out a picture to her. It was a photo of Jack but it was a mug shot. He wore a grey t-shirt and had a tired look to him. His blue eyes were dull, his mouth in a frown. His white hair was messy as his skin looked more pale than usual. She shook her head.

"I-I dont believe so." she replied.

He placed the photo in an inside pocket of his suit jacket. He removed a small white business card and held it out to her,

"If you do see him, give this number a call and ask for Ronin Connelly."

"Oh, umm, sure." she gave him a polite smile in return, taking the business card.

He gave her a nod and walked past her to the next pedestrian. She felt her body relax and she hurried towards her condo. She didnt look behind her nor did she slow her pace. She needed to make sure that Jack was okay and that he was no near a window. While her condos were further down the block and in its only little community, the last thing she needed was for her frosty friend to walk out of the house right now.

She tucked the business card into her pocket as she pulled her keys from her purse. They shook in her hands like chimes, the key never fitting in correctly the first time. By the third try she as able to unlock the door and push it open. The house felt cool, but still warmer than outside. She closed the door behind her.

"Jack?" she called. Her voiced echoed back to her in the empty house. Her heart began to beat a bit faster. She took off her jacket as she walked through the entrance way and into the kitchen. The kitchen lights were on, an empty container on the counter where it looked like he ate. She walked out into the living room, throwing her jacket onto the couch.

"Jack?" she called again. No response. Panic began to set in.

"Jack this isnt funny. There are people-" she gasped.

On the hard wood floor was an over turned white box. The contents were strewn about. Capped needles and glasses cylinders of penicillin along with glass tubes for blood. They were scattered upon the floor in a way that they had been dropped. Nothing looked like it was missing but what if he was in pain and was trying to find something to get rid of it? What if he went through all her medical supplies and hurt himself? That panic began to manifest, her heart raced.

"Jack!" she called, practically running down the hall. She opened up the bathroom door than his bedroom door. Everything was dark and undisturbed.

"Jack!" She called again, swinging open her own door. Relief set in like a tidal wave.

Her green eyes found the lump on her bed. His body was curved around her pillow, his face pressed against the goose feathered softness. His hair was a mess and he still wore his pajama bottoms. Her room, which was usually warm, was cold. The windows and mirrors held a frosty mist to them, her companion slept soundly. She walked up to the bed and sat down next to him. His grip was tight on the plush pillow, he looked like a child holding onto a life line in his nightmares.

She ran a hand through his white hair, pads of her fingers grazing over his scalp, "Jack? I'm home." she said softly.

The boy mumbled in his sleep, his grip on the pillow loosened as she continued to run her fingers through his hair. She smiled.

He blinked open his eyes, the feel of small fingers and blunt nails on his scalp was foreign yet not unwanted. But the strangeness did not go unnoticed and lulled him from his slumber. Blue eyes opened to the darkness, moonlight cascading through the bedroom windows and onto his visitor. Gold hair framed her face, up in a cute messy bun. Her smile was soft and her eyes held a kindness he never knew before.

"Rapunzel." he mumbled, his voice husky with sleep. She giggled.

"What are you doing in my room, silly?" she asked. She kicked off her shoes, they plopped onto the ground.

"I dont know." he replied. He watched as she laid down next to him, the pillow he held still kept them apart. She didnt smell of her usual honey scent but reminded him of the way the facility smelled. He knew that she just came back from work but he still hated the reminder.

"Why was there a box on the ground? Did something happen?" she asked, her brow furrowing in concern. He winced at the reminder of his own weakness, the box of needles and medicine was left on the floor from where he ran.

"I..I was looking at the boxes you have on the shelves and...kinda freaked myself out. Needles aren't exactly things I have good history with." he replied softly.

"Oh, Jack, I didnt even think of that!" she cried, her eyes wide, "I should've warned you have my medical supplies stored around the house. Im sorry."

"No its not your fault. I was just being nosey." he said, a masculine chuckle followed. "Why do you have a box of needles anyway?"

She shrugged. "I needed to practice while I was in med school. Its a habit for doctors to keep everything."

His eyes seemed to take on a look that she had seen before. It was calculating and she could see the wheels turning in his head. He moved the pillow from between them and under his head. She almost blushed at the sight of his toned chest bare for her to see, the muscles and tendons stretched and flexed as he rested his head on his bent arm under the pillow.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, its taught to us that as a doctor you have to make sure you keep all the information you have on a patient filed away for future use. If something were to go wrong, we have to know what blood type they are, family history of disease, anything they might be allergic to and so on. I got into the habit of keeping and filing away everything because of it." she laughed.

He did not. A light sparked in his blue eyes. He sat up looking down at her. She laid on her back at his closeness, he used his left arm to lean on and his upper body was over her.

"All doctors do this?"

"Y-yes."

"So the facility should have files on all their patients."

His words clicked in her head and she gasped, sitting up suddenly. Her head connected with his at the movement and both hissed out an 'ow'. God, his head was hard. Their brains swam.

"They must have files on all of their patients!" she cried, forgetting about the the pain on her head, "All the experiments have results and data, all the people in the program have to have files on history and blood type, illnesses and allergies. If they didnt everything they were doing would be for nothing! Jack you are a genius!"

He grinned, wincing as he held he forehead, "And here I thought I was all good looks."

She laughed and jumped off the bed, bouncing him in his place before he followed her out of the bedroom and towards the front room. Neither cared to pick up the mess of medical supplies on the floor, too excited about what was to come next. She sat herself at her desk, opening her laptop. She missed the way that Jack frowned when he saw the large blown up picture of her smiling with another guy kissing her cheek. They looked like they were at the beach, the sun and waves in the background. She missed the way his eyes narrowed as she clicked her web browser.

"What's the name of the facility?" she asked. He blinked back his rather jealous thoughts and looked down at her from where he bent over her chair.

"I don't know. They never told us." He vaguely remembered one of the men at the mall saying the name but in the mess of things he wasn't exactly taking notes.

Rapunzel hummed in thought before snapping her fingers and getting up from her place at her desk. She grabbed her jacket off the couch and pulled the small white business card from the pocket. She looked down at it and smiled.

"Lunar Corporation." She said, making her way back to her place in front of her laptop. The boy looked over her shoulder at the business card, raising an eyebrow.

"Where did you get that?" he asked.

She typed in the name of the corporation into her search engine, looking for anything that could help them in the least. She looked up at him from where he loomed over her sitting form.

"When I was walking home, a bunch of guys were asking around for you. When they asked me, I said I didn't know you and the man gave me his card and to contact him if I saw you." Rapunzel huffed. Like she would ever do that.

He smiled down at her and both looked back at the results of their search. The nurses brow furrowed in confusion, her mouth slightly open and pursed as she read the article on Lunar Corporation. There had to be something wrong. She read and re-read the articles, switching from link to link but they all said the same thing. Her heart plummeted and her spirits dampened.

"This cant be right." She mumbled, clicking onto the company's main website. Right there in large print and photomontage was her answer.

"What?" Jack asked, not sure what he was looking at.

"This…is Lunar Corporation." She said softly, leaning back in her chair. "It's a children's medical and disease research facility."

Jack glared at the screen. He watched as pictures of smiling children with equally smiling doctors faded in and out in front of him. Pictures of lab techs testing blood and samples, doctors helping children through physical therapy, nurses changing IVs for sick little girls. It was all a lie. This wasn't what it looked like. Nothing of this was there. He watched as the photos faded out and revealed a photo of the lab from the outside. He knew that place. He escaped from that place, broke the glass doors and ran as fast as he could. He curled his lip in disgust. They were covering up their atrocities with this façade of curing children. Instead of experimenting on human beings, their research was seen as 'helpful' and 'life altering'.

"Who runs it?" he asked darkly. He wanted to know the man to blame for all this. He wanted to know the man who took him and others into captivity and tortured them for 'science'.

Rapunzel scrolled down until they hit a row of head doctors and the founders. She looked at the portraits of each doctor. The looked like normal people, like normal doctors she would see at the hospital. But they weren't. Her eyes landed on the founder and co-founder of the research facility.

"Nickolas North and Gregory P. Black." She read out loud for him. She could feel the tension and anger rolling off him in waves, the air had turned cold and crisp. She looked at his hand that leaned on the desk, frost and ice was building up and creating fern designs on the hard wood.

"We have to get in there." He said, his tone was stern and serious. She looked back at the computer and began to search for pictures of the building, hoping to get a good look at the exits and entrances.

"Do you remember what it looked like on the inside?" she asked.

"Not where it counts." He replied, "Once we get inside I can get us to the holding cells and the different wings but I wasn't paying attention to notice where all the doors were."

She looked over the pictures, each one showing a beautiful expensive building. The outside was decorated with glass and solar panels, lined with urban decorative metal and arches. There was no available documented blue prints, no pictures that show the inside. It was all very secretive. It sickened her that someone would disguise a horrible experimentation lab for a children's disease facility. It was wrong and barbaric. She knew so many children who relied on research facilities to find cures and remedies for their pain. Cancers and internal diseases had sky rocketed over the last fifty years and it was the children who suffered the most. She had seen the x-rays, the blood samples, the surgeries and results. She closed her eyes for a moment just to be able to concentrate again.

It was as if no one was watching them. As if no one has ever caught them.

Her eyes shot open.

"Security cameras!" she cried grabbing her jacket off the floor and taking out her cell phone. She quickly text the only person she knew who remembered things like this.

"Security cameras?" he repeated, rather confused.

"Yes, Hiccup just had some installed into his lab because some of his things had gone missing. Very rarely will medical facilities –hospitals, labs, clinics- ever use different companies in the same city. If we know what company installed them, they had to have used a layout to install them."

Everything clicked.

"And if we know where the cameras are, we know every important room in the entire building." He said with a grin. She grinned back before he grabbed her and spun her around, holding her in a tight hug. She was warm against him, her giggles only made him laugh. He had never felt so care free, so powerfully capable. He never would've dreamed of having the ability or the chance to break into the facility and take his life back. He placed her on her feet once more, both were panting with large smiles.

There was a moment between them before it was broken by the large yawn of the petite girl. Jack smirked at her. He could see the need for sleep in her eyes, the way her body relaxed from the release of her yawn only made her look smaller.

"You can head to bed. Ill clean up." He said softly.

She looked over at the mess of needles on the floor before looking back at him with concern.

"Are you sure?" she asked, "I can pick it all up, I'm fine-"

"It's okay, Punz. I need to do it."

She raised an eyebrow, "Punz?"

The winter boy shrugged and smiled, "You gave me a name, only right that I get to do the same."

Rapunzel shook her head and walked toward her room, stretching her arms above her head. She was pretty tired. She felt sore from sitting in the nurses station all night then sitting at her own computer. She took a glance at Jack. He told over the mess, looking down at it with concentration. She knew why he felt he needed to do it. She knew that his will power and his hard headedness helped him get out of his horrible situation but it was also a flaw that he worked with. He wanted to over come the fear that these doctors put in him and he wasnt going to let anyone help him.

She turned and walked into her room.

Jack stared at the capped needles on the hard wood floors. They cast shadows on the surface that matched the shadows they held in his head. He remembered nurses rolling out metal carts, revealing metal trays of needles, scalpels, tubes and cylinders. He hated those days. He'd rather be hooked up to a machine or tested for adaption or endurance. Needles meant chemicals and drugs. It meant throwing up for hours, seizers, rashes, dry heaving, hallucinations and sleeplessness.

He closed his eyes to the memories, trying to picture something, anything, else. With a deep breath he pictured the orange and yellow leaves on the streets, people smiling, waking up to food, Rapunzel smiling at him. Another deep breath. He picked up the box and slowly picked up each needle, placing them back inside. His hands shook, his heart beat fast but he didnt stray. He wouldn't run. He was done with letting them control him. It wasnt much, but it was a step in the right direction.

He put everything back, the box was placed back to where it belonged. The house was quiet, the silence echoed around him and he found that being alone wasnt as great as he had thought before. Being alone in his cell meant he wasn't being experimented on. There was no such thing as loneliness when the alternative meant pain. He turned off each light as he walked down the hall. He came to the door of his room, looking inside. It glowed in the moonlight, warming up with his absence. Rapunzel had obviously put on the heater.

He stared at the emptiness before looking over at the door behind him. It was slightly ajar, the inside was dark. He pushed the door open, his eyes landing on the small lump under the covers. The smell of honey and flowers assaulted him and he knew she had showered before bed. The lump shifted before lengthen out and sat up.

"Jack?" She called.

"Yeah, uh, sorry I was just going to bed." He said, embarrassed that she had noticed him. He could see her even in the dark of the room. Her hair was a messy of blonde waves, her skin glowed with lotion and her eyes squinted at him to see him. She wore what looked like a large t-shirt from the top half.

"Are you okay?" She asked, her voice thick in sleep.

"Yeah, I'm fine." But he stood in the door way still, his feet seemed glued to the ground. There was a moment of thought before she leaned forward on her raised knees.

"You want to sleep in here tonight?" She asked softly.

She knew how much internal issues he had been going through today. So much pain and memories, unveilings and fear. She didn't know what it would be like to go through all of that in only a couple of days.

He didnt answer but instead allowed himself to walk into the room and toward the bed. He knew his presence would cool the room and so did she. He climbed into the large queen sized bed, putting himself under the covers but left room between them. She laid down and faced him. Both looked at each other for a moment, both relaxing.

"Sorry if I make you cold."

She smiled, "Its okay. I tend to kick off the blankets anyway."

He chuckled.

Both fell into sleep. One thinking of his future, the other thinking of tomorrow.

There was nothing that could prepare the nurse for breaking into a government facility.


	7. Chapter 7

"It should be around here somewhere." The blonde mumbled.

The morning had been like a dream for Jack. He wondered if every man understood how lucky they were, he wondered if every man had a life like this. He woke up to Rapunzel curled into his chest, her head tucked under his chin and her hand resting on his abdominals. Her shapely soft legs were tangled with his, her long blonde hair strewn across the pillows. She looked like a fallen angel, he felt like he didnt deserve to be in her presence.

She had woken up and gave him the cutest 'good morning'. He never knew that his pale cheeks could heat up so fast. She just giggled and stretched in a way that had him more aware of his morning predicament. Maybe he was reacting to her so much because he'd never met anyone like her. She was the first woman outside of the doctors that he's ever been around. She was kind and beautiful and he was not prepared to handle this.

Maybe this feeling was all a fluke.

He looked over from the passenger seat, watching as she kept messing with her GPS while trying to look around for the right building. Hiccup didn't drop in on their morning breakfast this time, they ate cereal in peace. They decided to look for the tech building called Lorex Technology. Hiccup sent a text and let them know that he had brought in a consultant from hospitals database and it was Lorex Tech that supplied them. It made it easy to find them and less time running around trying to find out the city's go to companies.

"Are you sure you're okay with this?" He asked, "You don't seem like the type to break into places."

Rapunzel looked over at him. She could see the regret in his eyes, the doubt he had in himself and in her. She wasnt doing a good job at being his light house if he doubted her.

She smiled, "Youre right, I'm not that kind of person. But what they're doing is wrong. If getting those files will help us break this thing open then it'll be worth it."

He looked at her and felt his heart beat quicken. She looked to sure of herself, like despite how wrong all this was, she knew what she was doing was right. Because she did the right thing despite anything else. His blue eyes were wide, his mouth slightly open.

"Oh look! There it is!" She cried in happiness.

His attention was taken from her, only to land on the large three story building. It looked like every other building, made of reflective tinted glass with white walls and metal supports. The bushes and trees were immaculate, everything look well kept and expensively paid for. The words 'Lorex Technology' were displayed at the top of the building, all chrome angles and shiny surfaces.

The nurse parked near the entrance, turning off the car and buttoning up her jacket. Jack was still surprised how susceptible others were to cold. This weather was perfect for him. Even if it snowed he wouldn't know the difference from his own body temperature. He stepped out of the warm car and took a breath of the cool fresh air. Rapunzel told him that it should start to snow in the next couple of weeks. He's never seen snow that he didnt make. He was actually excited.

Rapunzel stepped out of the car, her baby blue jacket buttoned up to her white scarf. The buttons and white fur lining matched her white fur boots. She always made sure she was bundled up before leaving the house, still surprised to see her companion only wearing a pair of jeans, vans and a thin v-neck tshirt. She shook her head with a smile. He was so lucky.

"Any idea how we do this?" He asked, stepping in time beside her as they made their way to the entrance.

She shrugged, "I guess we just ask."

"And they just show us?"

"I don't know, I've never needed blue prints before," She answered.

Without thinking, Jack reached for the door and opened it for her. The motion made his brow furrow a bit. He didnt know why or how he knew that it was the socially acceptable thing to do, but he did. It was innate, a deep seated habit that he must've been taught but never remembered who had taught him.

The blonde smiled at him brightly, enjoying this behavior he had yet to understand.

The lobby of the building was filled with neutral colors. The walls were beige and matched the few framed art that hung on them. There was a long desk toward the back of the room, several hallways that led to offices, elevators and bathrooms. It felt like a normal building, as if they were a tax office rather than a security company.

Rapunzel approached the desk clerk with a smile. A smile that the man did not reciprocate.

"Hi, I was wondering if I could see the floor layout used to install cameras at Lunar Corporation?" She asked sweetly.

The man gave her a dull stare behind a pair of wire rimmed glasses.

With an annoyed sigh, "You'll have to see our records department on floor two." His voice was bored and monotone which made the entire exchange rather awkward.

Without further instruction, Jack turned a heal, hands deep in his jean pockets, and headed toward the elevator. He wasnt exactly the patient type and he was already annoyed with the fact that the guy acted so rudely to Rapunzel. He wanted to get the information and get out. He pushed the button, waiting for the silver doors as Rapunzel mumbled a 'thank you' before following his lead.

"That was...helpful." She said quietly under her breath.

"Pretty sure any one who works with Lunar are just shitty human beings." He mumbled.

"Jack, that's not true. Some of these people could be very nice and have no idea about Lunar." She replied. He gave her a look just as the elevator 'dinged'.

The chrome door opened and blue eyes stares into the metal box. His legs didnt move, his body grew stiff. Rapunzel walked in, turning toward the door. She tilted her head in confusion. He just stood there like a statue, his heart beat in his ears.

It was all metal. It was a small space with silver metal walls. Everything was so closed in, so tight and narrow that he imagined suffocating before he even took a step in. He could feel the bottom of his shoes begin to ice over. The hands in his pockets created ice fractures along the threads of his jeans. His eyes seemed to brighten and the natural blue faded in the sea of icy sapphire.

"Jack? Jack, what's wrong?"

He barely heard her voice over the pounding in his head. Metal conducted cold. Small tight spaces usually filled with something. Tight metal spaces filled with gas, filled with water, filled with heat. Tight spaces meant letting his lungs lose the capacity to expand, his body trying to find an exit, Ingres trying to find a purchase. It was her warm fingers against his cheek that made his gaze snap to her, his chest rising and falling with each labored breath as if he had woken from a nightmare.

"Jack, close your mouth and breathe in through your nose." His eyes looked back to the elevator before she let the doors close behind her, her hands pulled his face down toward her, "No, look at me, Jack. Breathe in their your nose and out your mouth. Just look at me."

He watched her steady green eyes, his hands grabbed hers and held them to his face. She winced at the sudden cold but didnt pull away. She breathed slowly through her nose and out of her pink lips, allowing him to follow her example. They ignored the looks they got from other, people chose to take the stairs rather than interrupt them. Green stayed on blue, watching each other until he could feel his heart beat slow once more, his body stopped feeling like it was going to implode, his mind had ceased to scream at him.

"Are you okay?" She asked. He looked at her, his hands still holding hers to his cheeks.

"Yeah.." He mumbled, never looking away from her eyes. "What was that?"

"That was a panic attack." She said, "Something about the elevator raised your anxiety to scary levels."

He didnt respond, only looked passed her and at the metal doors.

"Come on, we'll take the stairs." She gave him a reassuring smile.

He reluctantly let her hands go. He gazed down at the, and noticed the pale redness he had caused. Despite the cold he knew burned her fingers, she just smiled and led the way to the staircase. He felt guilt creep into his stomach again, that feeling that kept reminding him to keep her at arms length. He could never keep her warm. She said herself that he was too cold to be normal and she was too warm to be touching someone like him.

Neither said a word until they reached the second floor. It was a little more compact, mostly filled with cubicles and offices behind the main desk. This time it was a woman who sat at the desk, her head set placed over a short brown bob.

"Mr. Fisher, I have St. Mary's Children's Hospital on line one." She said into the mouth piece, her manicured fingers clicking away at her computer. "Thank you for calling Lorex Technology, please hold."

Dark brown eyes looked up at them, "What can I do for you?"

"Oh umm-" Rapunzel stumbled.

"We're here to look at the floor plan that was used at Lunar Corporation." Jack interjected.

She looked them over, "The reason for your visit?"

"We think that you missed a key area of security when installing them." Jack lied. Rapunzel smiled awkwardly in his lie.

She clicked away at her computer, the sound of her nails on the plastic keyboard echoed in the entrance way.

"You going to want to talk to Derek Sullivan. He's the one who took care of Lunar Corp. Head down this main hall and take a right, his office will be the first door on the left." She went back to her last caller, leaving the duo to their directions.

The problem was not finding the office, the problem wasn't even getting an audience with Mr. Sullivan. The problem trying to convince the man that they needed the floor plan without incriminating themselves. They both sat in front of the large mahogany desk, his office was large and decorated with interesting knick-knacks and potted plants. He, himself, was a small round man with a bright red tie on a white pin-stripped shirt. His black hair was combed over to hide his aging, thought the deep set wrinkles in his brow and mouth gave it away.

"I can't give you the floor plan without proper identification." He repeated, looking rather bored with the entire situation. Rapunzels face fell.

"I have my ID from the hospital but I forgot my ID from the Lunar. I thought since they both used the same company and I work for both, I only needed one." She pleaded, trying to sound as pitiful as possible. Se genuinely sucked at lying but she hoped since she really did feel defeated that it sounded rather real.

"I understand but you'll have to come back with the proper ID before I can show you the floor plan." Sullivan repeated, ready to show them out.

Jack narrowed his eyes at the man. He took Rapunzels cell phone from her lap and opened it up. He clicked Hiccups number,

"Oh, we understand. Dr. Black will be very disappointed not having this problem figured out." He said with a straight face though he smirked inside as he lifted the phone to his ear.

The man paled.

_"Punz? What are you doing calling me during work?" _

"Dr. Black? It's Jack."

"_Jack, why are you on Rapunzels phone? Who's Dr. Black?"_

"No, we did not. Sullivan refuses to grant Rapunzel access to the layout."

"_Is this a schizophrenic episode? Where's Rapunzel?" _

"She's right here. Yes, she does have her hospital ID."

_"Jack, if you're having a psychotic break down and Rapunzels in trouble, so help me-"_

"I don't know if coming here is necessary, Dr. Black."

_"Jack! Go bother someone else with your issues."_

"Wait!"

Jack and Rapunzel both looked at the man. His eyes were wide and he had started to sweat. He looked like he was being threatened with the devil himself.

"There's no need for any of that. Ill allow access this once but with a warning to bring your ID from Lunar next time around." He stumbled with his keys, trying to get his filing cabinet open as if he was in a race with Jack.

The white haired male smirked, "Never mind, doctor, we came to an understanding."

_"I already don't like you." _

_Click._

Jack handed Rapunzel back her cell phone, smirking mischievously as he watched the man fret over the file. He large shaky hands pulled out a large neatly folded blue print. He unfolded it and laid it out before them. Him and the blonde nurse shared a glance as she placed her wallet back in her purse. They needed to take it but obviously he wasn't going to let them leave with it.

They both stood and looked down at the desk.

Rapunzels green eyes scanned over every white line and 'x' where the cameras were indicated to be. The building was bigger than they thought; two stories with a large basement area. No rooms were specified or labeled. The first floor looked like a large empty area, smaller rooms and offices but nothing big. She flipped the first sheet over and looked under it to the second floor. Now this was interesting. It was a mix of large rooms, each with at least three cameras installed in each and many smaller rooms side by side with one camera in each room. What caught her attention was a large room in the upper corner of the floor. It was shaped like an office but had at least three cameras inside and three directly outside in the hall.

That's what they wanted.

"I...see the problem." She said trying not to sound suspicious.

Jack saw her take her phone, her fingers grasped long ways and pointed it toward the sheet. He gave her a nod. With a flick of his wrist, one of the small plastic dogs on his desk was sent to the floor with an audible crack in the hard wood.

"Oops, sorry about that." Jack said but made no move to grab it.

The man had jumped from the sound, already raddled by the situation itself. It looked like he was searching the nurses face, hoping that there was no problem so he couldn't be blamed. Sullivan gave the boy a glare before walking over to the side of the large desk and picking up the cute Snoopy toy.

Jack watched Rapunzel take several pictures of the floor plan before turning the first blue print over it.

"Well, it seems like Mr. Black forgot to inform you of another camera needed toward the back of the second floor. It was our bad. We will inform him and get back to you this week." Rapunzel gave a polite smile, holding out her hand to him professionally.

The man nodded and gave a relieved smile, shaking her hand in return.

Neither of the impostors said a word as they walked out of the office and toward the stairwell. Even outside of the prying eyes, they didn't take any chances. They walked down the stairs, side by side, never looking back until they were safely in the car.

Both sat in silence, her hands in the wheel and his in his lap.

"He was terrified of that doctor." Her voice broke the silence and he ran a hand through his hair.

"I remembered his smile." He said softly. Her eyes widened.

"From the picture on the website?" She asked.

"I didn't know his name but I saw him once. In the middle of an experiment, he was smiling at me and then everything went dark. I had a feeling that guy was probably as scared of him as I am." He chuckled humorlessly.

Her warm hand found his, holding it as if she were reminding him that she was still there. His eyes met hers, filled with as much distrust and fear as she could bare.

"You don't have to be afraid anymore." Her voice was desperate, pleading with him to hold on a little longer. "I won't let them take you again. We made a pinky promise remember?"

He watched as she brought her other hand around, twisting her her body to face him. Her little pinky was out, waiting for his own. He heard giggling in his head, a tinkle of child like laughter. It echoed in his ears and danced in his memory. He saw brown hair and heard giggling.

"What do those mean?" He asked softly, looking from her finger.

"They mean that breaking my promise would be like breaking my own finger. I never break my promises." She said and gave him one of her soft smiles. The ones that made everything okay.

She had an odd way of doing that. Making everything okay.

He wrapped his pinky around hers, giving her a smile in return as small as it was.

"I know."

She grinned, tear brimming in her eyes, "Lets do something fun okay? We can worry about all that other bad stuff tomorrow."

"What do you have in mind?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

"So the point is to glide on the ice."

"Yep." She giggled.

"And that's hard?"

She gave him a look, narrowing her eyes at him,

"Hey, skating on ice is not easy for us-"

"Boring people?"

"Normal. I was going to say normal."

He chuckled, looking down at his skates. They were old and rugged, worn around the edged and frayed at the laces. But the narrow blade under his feet were sharp and stable. He looked over at his companion again. She was bundled up in her coat and scarf, her little skates just as worn as his own.

She stood, gloved hands out to balance herself as she tried to make her way to the rink. She stumbled back and forth until he stood and grabbed her elbows. She turned and gave him an awkward smile,

"I guess I'm extra boring." She said with a laugh. He chuckled and smirked, walking them to the entrance.

"Nah, just uncoordinated."

As soon as their skates hit the ice, she grabbed onto him tightly.

"It's okay, I got you." He said.

He looked around at the others on the rink. It was outside but obviously man made. It sat in the middle of the city in a park surrounded by bare trees and autumn leaves. There were a couple kids with parents watching, one other young couple trying to navigate. He looked back at her and grabbed her hands, his back facing the rink while he pulled her forward onto the ice. She watched his feet as he expertly skated backwards, but she could see the ice that grew around the metal of the skates, creating fern like designs on the ice beneath him.

"Wow." She breathed.

He yanked her to him, she squeaked as she flew across the ice and into his chest.

"Shhh, its supposed to be a secret. I'm supposed to be boring." He said, turning them in small circles.

"You? I don't think you could be boring if you tried." She laughed.

He grabbed her hand and moved her so she skated beside him. She held onto his hand as much as her gloved had could. They began to make their way around the ring, dodging people while he showed off his skills. He felt like he was one with the ice, the way he assumed normal people felt with air. He breathed the cold, felt the snow and ice. Each cool breeze was wind beneath his heels. It was amazing.

They wasted time away with laughs and giggles. Even when Rapunzel had gotten too tired, he had taken to showing the kids how to skate, how to keep their balance. Only the blonde on the side lines knew that he prevented them from falling with his abilities. Soon the sun was setting and the children began to filter out, all happy and tired themselves.

He guided his nurse out onto the ice one last time, both had their fill of hit dogs and hit chocolate from the near by vendors. She was blushing from the cold, though he liked to believe it was him.

"Still having fun?" He asked, holding her gloved hands as they made circles and figure-eights in the middle of the ice.

"I'm here with you aren't I?" She said with a laugh.

"Flattery will not stop me from making you skate." He said, spinning her.

She let out a squeal of surprise yet trusted him to make sure she didn't fall. She grabbed onto his midnight blue t-shirt, holding on as he skated them around as if she were a child standing on his feet in a dance. She looked up at him, her blonde hair whipping about in the night breeze. It played at her sense and she let out a small sneeze

"One last trick before we head home?" He whispered to her with a glint of mischief in his eye.

She raised an eyebrow, "One last trick."

"Put your arms around my neck." He instructed, yet his eyes never left hers.

She felt her cheeks grow warm despite the cold. His eyes were so blue. So intense and filled with wonder. She had never met a man so obviously a man yet held such a child like awe of the world. He was so sweet to those children. He cared about them, protected them from the ice and made sure to make them smile. Yet his kindness was there just behind the exterior of a very capable dangerous man. His abilities were dangerous and she had seen them at work.

He placed his large hands on her waist as she slid her arms around his neck.

"Now..." He whispered.

The wind around them picked up, circling their bodies and flowing around them like a soft whirl wind. It played with their hair and the edges of their clothes. Yet they're eyes never left each others.

"Look." He said.

He followed their gaze down and she gasped.

Both if them floated just inches off the ground. Not enough for passerby's to notice but enough for her to feel the air under her heels.

"We're flying." She breathe out, her lips curling into an awe struck smile, her green eyes wide.

"Guess you're not all that boring." He said, yet it was his eyes that found her lips. They were red with the cold, plump and open in such a way that he could not wonder what it tasted like. If she tasted as sweet as she seemed.

Her own eyes met his down cast ones, looking at his own pale lips. They were not full yet held a masculine curve to them. They were usually set in a deep line or a smirk but this time they were slightly open. She knew it was wrong, knew it was out of character for her but she wondered if he tasted of peppermint. He reminded her of the snow, soft yet capable of turning into a storm of destruction. She wondered if his mouth was cold.

He could feel her breath on his lips, his head dipping down slowly as they stayed floating just above the icy surface.

"Rapunzel?"

The blondes eyes opened wide, pulling back out of his arms. They both fell to the ice with a resounding 'clank' of skates and 'oof' as a body hit the hard cold ground.

Jack offered his hand to the girl as she regained her composure. Both sets of eyes turned and met the sight of bright brown ones. A red glove waved at the two from the side lines of the rink.

"Hi, Eugene. Funny seeing you here." She replied, that awkward smile back in place.

A/N: please let me know your thoughts...


	8. Chapter 8

Rapunzel felt like the worst girlfriend in history. There she was standing close to a man she just met not three days ago, ready to throw her morals into the wind. She almost let him kiss her. No, that was wrong of her. She almost allowed herself to kiss him. She wanted to be kissed and she felt a horrible guilt eat at her insides. She skated to the rink's edge as Eugene walked over to them.

He was bundled in a grey sweatshirt under a leather jacket; his red gloves were bright against the dark colors. His skin was tanned much like Rapunzel's with big expressive brown eyes and some facial hair. Basically Jack noticed that they couldn't look more opposite if they tried. This was the man in Rapunzel's pictures. The one who held her and kissed her cheek for the camera. He felt that little green monster burrow into his stomach.

"I had a friend who needed work on his car." Eugene said with a smile, "He's the vet across the street. I saw your car and thought that you might be here."

The man leaned in and gave her a quick kiss on her lips.

Jack stayed a few feet back, balancing on the ice. His hands in his pockets began to make ice crystals on his jeans. He looked away from the two.

"Y-Yeah," she said softly, that guilt still eating at her, "Um, I brought out an old friend before I had to go to work. This is Jack. He went to med school with me." She lied.

Jack skated over to them as Eugene met his eyes. The boyfriend offered a gloved hand with a surprised look on his face as he took in Jack's attire,

"Hey, man. You're not cold?" he asked as Jack took his hand in a polite gesture.

"Nope, nerves of steel." He replied with a smirk that was far too serious. Eugene faltered for a moment at the other mans tone but just shrugged it off.

The dark haired man turned back to the blonde, holding his hands out for her so he could walk her to the exit. She carefully moved on the ice as Eugene poked fun at her clumsiness, making her giggle.

Jack circled the rink a couple more times, trying to get his mind off the jealousy that coursed through his blood. He shouldn't even be feeling like this. She wasn't his. Just because she found him, helped him and still helps him doesn't mean that she was his to hold or kiss. If anything, he belonged to her. He was indebted to her. Without her, he would probably be back in the facility or dead. Without him, she would've gone on living.

"So what's his story?" Eugene asked as he pulled the nurse to one of the benches. Rapunzel gave him a confused look before Eugene raised an eyebrow at her, "Oh come on. His hair?"

Rapunzel giggled and shook her head, "I think it suits him." She corrected before looking out on the ice at her new friend. "He's kinda down on his luck right now. He…lost his job and his home. So I told him he could stay in my extra bedroom until he gets back on his feet."

Eugene stiffened a bit.

"For how long?"

"I don't know. We're trying to…" she paused, not very good at making stuff up on the fly, "…find him a job right now."

Rapunzel gave Eugene a sympathetic smile knowing that he wasn't very comfortable with a man he didn't know sleeping in the same house as his girlfriend. She could see the suspicion in his eyes and the worry they held.

"What about his family?" he asked.

"He doesn't have any."

Eugene sighed, his shoulders dropping in defeat. Rapunzel was giving him those big green doe eyes, hoping that he understood. And he did, he just didn't like it. But she could never turn away from a person in need and this guy was definitely down on his luck.

"Okay, just be careful." He said with a small smile. She grinned at him and hugged him in a bundle of warm coats and body heat. He hugged her back, leaning his head on her knit cap before his pocket vibrated.

Both pulled away from each other as he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. The handsome man made a face before looking back to the blonde,

"I have to go meet the tow truck to get the guy's car to the shop." He said, almost pouting that his time with her was cut short. Rapunzel laughed,

"It's fine, I have to head to work soon anyway." She said.

Eugene leaned in and kissed her lips once more before standing up, "Aren't you off work tomorrow?" he asked, hope in his brown eyes.

Rapunzel winced, "Yes, but I told Jack that we'd go somewhere."

_'Like breaking into a government facility and stealing confidential files about human experimentation.' _

His face fell, "Oh, okay. Call me later?"

"Sure." She confirmed with a soft regretful smile. He kissed her head before jogging back to the vet's office across the street.

Rapunzel looked back at the ice skating rink and found the white haired boy to be skating in figure eights with his head down and his hands behind his back. His face looked sorrowful, his eyes looked dejected and she felt like holding him. Which she shouldn't. She looked at Eugene's retreating form, wondering why she the feeling of missing him seemed to be more muted than it was initially.

The blonde girl stood shakily on her skates and waddled her way to the wall of the rink. Once she had her footing she watched as the human experiment moved on the ice. She could see the crystals on his skates, infusing with the ice below him and leaving fern like patterns on the ice as he moved. It was beautifully tragic.

"Jack?" she called softly.

Jack lifted his head, getting used to the name she had given him. Eugene was gone and Rapunzel stood outside the rink. He stopped and stood in the middle of the ice, looking at her. She was so far out of his reach that he felt like she was miles away. It was wrong of him to be jealous. It was wrong of him to feel rejected because she didn't owe him anything, certainly not herself.

Blue eyes met hers and there was a moment shared between them. A silent understanding that whatever it was that transpired between them these last three days had to end. She belonged to someone else and Jack would never be him. He could never be a normal man with a normal job. She deserved normal.

"Are you ready to go home?" she asked softly.

The answer that came to his head was 'no'. Not because he terribly liked where he was, but because he wanted to tell her that it wasn't 'home'. It was her home, not his. It was a home that Eugene and her probably shared from time to time. A bed they probably laid in together. He felt that sinking feeling of jealousy once more. He wanted to be able to be angry and dejected but he had no right.

"Sure."

The night was spent in silence. Rapunzel had gone to work with more things on her mind than she had planned. She was almost absent from the patients and the other nurses. Her movements were planned and almost on autopilot. Her mind was far away from work and focused on the thought that she was able to feel to close to a man she just met when she was already in a healthy and functional relationship.

Eugene had fixed her car about six months ago. He was sweet and charming and was just as busy as her. He asked her on a date and they hit it off. He was everything she needed. He didn't care about her late hours or the fact that she was working most of the time. In reality, so was he. They took vacations with each other, went out for late night meals and early breakfasts to work around her sporadic schedule. He was perfect and she never wanted for anything more.

But it was as if Jack turned all that on its head. He was proof that there was something beyond her work and the world she knew. He was exciting and adventurous. He was dangerous and charismatic. He was a puzzle she was still trying to figure out. When he was near her she felt safe yet she also felt like another door had opened to her normal everyday life.

She spent the night staring at the computer screen and filing papers, checking IV's and changing bedpans. Hiccup had called her on her break but she knew that if she talked to him that she would end up spilling everything to him and the last thing she wanted was to go into that conversation with her paranoid friend.

She walked home that night around midnight. The men who were searching for Jack had obviously moved on but left fliers of his face in their wake, as if he were a missing beloved child. She took down all the ones she passed, throwing them into the garbage on her way to her complex.

The apartment was dark when she walked in, cold and dark. She looked around but there was no sign that Jack had actually been out in the living room or kitchen. The blonde made her way to her bedroom and looked across the hall at his. The door was closed and ice crystals formed into the door. It created snowflake like patterned through each little line of wood. She reached to knock but pulled back.

With a soft sigh she walked into her empty bedroom and closed the door behind her.

* * *

><p>"This is a bad idea."<p>

"Rapunzel-"

"Really bad. We're breaking into a privately owned government facility, Jack!"

"Rapunzel-"

"What if we get caught? We could go to prison!"

Jack placed a hand on hers, making her look at him. They still sat in their car, parked on the street and far away from the security cameras in the parking lot. They had spent the day gearing up for this. They slept in and ate breakfast, printed out her pictures of the blue prints and began the game plan. It would be quick and easy. Rapunzel was excited until they were actually at the facility in the dark of the night.

He figured that she had thought that she was doing good up until she was faced with actually performing the deed that was technically against the law. He knew that someone as sweet and kind as her never broke the law before and he honestly felt bad for dragging her into this.

Jack opened the car door, undoing his seatbelt, "You don't have to come if you don't want to."

Rapunzel's grip on the steering wheel loosened a bit as she looked over at Jack. He had that determined face on again. That one that meant that what they were doing meant something to him. She looked down at the blue prints on the dash. Jack leaned forward and grabbed them before exiting the car.

Everything inside her head told her that this was wrong. But her heart yearned to help make this right for him. He had lost everything because of the man that owned this facility. She was the only one who knew. And she picky promised that she would help him.

She unbuckled her seat belt and got out of the car as well. Jack looked over at her and raised an eyebrow. She gave him a nervous smile, clicking her door locked.

"A promise is a promise." She said. His eyes widened a bit before he gave her a smirk.

"Here you go navigator." He handed her the blue prints.

She took a deep breath and looked at the map they had laid out for themselves. If they went through the main entrance it would take twice as long to get to the second floor where the filing room was. She looked at all the marked doors and frowned. The problem was the alarms. All the doors would be armed. She looked up at the building and her eyes went to the top of the facility.

"Think you can get us to the roof?" she asked. Jack chuckled, pulling her into his arms. She gasped and crunched the map in her hands to warp her arms around him.

"Hold on tight." He said.

He swept his leg back, the soles of his shoes slid on the concrete just as the wind picked up. The north wind moved him like waves moved a surfer. Rapunzel closed her eyes tight, hiding her face in his chest. Jack made sure to fly over the security cameras in the parking lot, though his body was unstable. He had yet to perfect this skill, barely learning it the night he escaped. He pushed himself to get to the roof just as the wind died under his heels.

Both bodies tumbled to onto the hard concrete. Jack moved around so that he took the brunt of the fall. He hissed as they slid, his black t-shirt lifted and scraped his bare back on the hard surface. Rapunzel held on, her eyes still closed until they came to a stop. She popped her head up, looking down at the boy under. She sat up, not caring that she straddled his waist as she checked him for injuries,

"Oh my god, are you okay? Did you break anything?" she asked, her small hands going to press down on his ribs just in case when his hand caught hers.

"I'm fine, Punz." He said with a groan as he sat up. It hurt like hell but he knew what broken bones felt like and he had none.

"Are you sure?" she asked, giving him that worried look. He nodded and helped her to her feet.

"Which way are we going?" he asked, looking around the flat roof.

"Down." She said as if it was the obvious answer. He looked at her and narrowed his eyes,

"Im guessing you don't mean stairs."

Rapunzel looked at the map again then back at him and shrugged.

"For a doctor, your reasoning skills suck." He said with a shake of his head, looking around for some kind of latch or sky light. Rapunzel pouted,

"Hey…"

Jack walked around the large roof, his eyes catching a glint of reflective surface not too far away. The closer he got the more he realized what it was. The second floor, the floor where the extermination is done, had a large skylight. He remembered the sun coming through when they would walk him back to his holding cell. He also couldn't think of any latches or openings from the inside.

The white haired male knelt down at one of the glass panels. Rapunzel walked up behind him, looking down at the facility as well. It was all dark. The subjects were on a strict schedule of sleep. They woke when the lights came on and slept when they were turned out. It was a cycle that that preplanned every day of his life.

He placed a pale hand on the glass panel before him, slowly letting frost seep into the conductor. It started to frost over, than crystalize. The more he touched it, the more it started to freeze, creating pressure in the particles. After a minute or two, when the glass was completely white and cracked, Jack hit his palm into the middle of it. It shattered, pieces fell to the floor far below and scattered across the hard white tile in the darkness.

Security wasn't set inside. With alarms, cameras and with the doors manned most would think it was safe that no one could get or out. His idea was that if he broke out, he could break in.

"Ready?" he asked offering the girl a hand.

"We're…w-we're jumping?!" she eeped, her big green eyes wide with fear.

Jack pulled her to him, "Don't worry, I got you. " With a smirk he jumped. The wind that was created by the force of the jump was easily manipulated for the short time to get them safely to the ground.

Jack floated down with her, landing silently. Neither moved.

The smell assaulted him first. That smell of bleach and antiseptic. They stood in the middle of the main walkway; steel bolted doors with small windows were the only things around them. They were the holding cells. Sound proofed so that none of the subjects could hear what the doctors were saying. The more ignorant they were, the less of a chance they would try to escape or commit suicide.

With a deep breath, he glanced at the map picturing all the places that the security cameras were circled. He walked over to one of the walls, in between two steel doors. Placing his hands on the wall, he closed his eyes. Ice surged from his palms across the beige paint, creating jagged paths of ice crystals. Rapunzel watched as his eyes glowed an aqua blue, the ice took out each camera in the hall way. It froze over the wires and system, the lenses cracking and breaking altogether. It was amazing. She wondered if these doctors knew just how powerful he was. It scared her to think that they might find out.

"Let me know when to get to more cameras. This way." He said, looking back at her. His eyes were back to the soft blue they usually were, looking her over as if checking how freaked out she was. Honestly she was really freaked out, but not because of him. She knew that people slept behind the steel doors. She knew that they were experiments just like him. Everything inside her wanted to help them too.

She followed Jack, looking back every once in awhile at the door they passed.

"Just don't think about it." He whispered softly, his eyes forward.

Rapunzel looked at his back, watching how tense his muscles were as if he were waiting for anything or anything to try and stop them.

"Do you have friends in those cells?" she asked.

"We didn't socialize with each other much. Especially me."

"Why?"

"That's a story left for another time." He replied.

"Oh."

They're foot steps were soft on the floors, both trying not too draw too much attention as they made their way down the hall. Eventually Rapunzel found herself just looking down. She couldn't watch those small windows pass by without thinking about looking in and seeing the people that this doctor took captive. She tried to keep her emotions in check.

"Left or right?"

She looked up and saw that they were at a crossroad. Going straight would just have them passing more holding cells and eventually hit an end. She looked at her crumbled map.

"Right." She replied.

He made a right and she followed on his heel, still keeping her eyes down. She just wanted it all to before over. She wanted to go home and go to sleep and hope that this was all some horrible nightmare. Her job was to help people and these doctors went out of their way to hold these people like prisoners, using them like animals. She put her hand over her mouth as her mind gave her images and her stomach tried to give her bile.

Jack was walking with his hand sliding against the wall. The wall froze over; ice formed and slid up to the wall to any of the security cameras that could catch them. They all short-circuited and broke under the temperature difference. His eyes were on the large office not too far away; the name 'BLACK' was on a gold plaque on the door with his title as head doctor. Jack scowled. His anger spiked his abilities sending jagged ice up the walls of the office and shattering the plastic and glass of the cameras.

Rapunzel jumped and ducked behind Jack as pieces of the cameras and glass fell to the hard linoleum floors, sounding like rain echoing down the halls. Both thieves stood perfectly still, listening for anything that might seem like they had been heard. The facility was dead quiet, both held their breaths and were ready to run.

"Sorry." Jack whispered.

"It's okay."

Jack took the door knob into his hand, letting it freeze over until the wood around it cracked. He stepped back, making sure that Rapunzel was off to the side before kicking the door with the flat of his foot as hard as he could. The door slammed open, splintering as the silver knob fell from its hinge.

"Come on, someone had to have heard that." Jack mumbled walking into the dark office. There were filing cabinet all along the walls, all shone in the florescent lights like steel cages. There was a long desk with piled up papers and open files as well as other labeled cabinets underneath the desk itself.

Rapunzel ran her hand down the front of the first row, looking at the labels. They were labeled by groups of numbers. Her brow furrowed,

"Jack, what was your number?"

"5742." He replied, going through the loose papers on the desk. It looked like gibberish to him, all notes and data that he didn't understand. But he did see something that bothered him. It was a photograph of a girl that look around his age. She didn't have a number and the date of the mug shot was just a couple of days ago. He had thought that the facility would've gone into a panic with one of his subjects gone but instead they were bringing in new people?

None of this made sense.

"Its not here." Rapunzel said sliding the drawer shut, "They must've taken it out."

Jack began to thumb through the open files and loose papers, moving everything around in search for anything with his number on it. Blue eyes scanned quickly while Rapunzel looked around the office for anything else that might be useful. Her eyes landed on the short filing cabinet under the right of the mahogany desk. She bent down and looked at the label.

It was blank.

Everything was labeled in here. In a hospital there was nothing that went blank unless there was a purpose for it. She opened the drawer, kneeling down on her black jean clad knees. She started to thumb through the files that were inside, pursing her lips in thought. They seemed like all the other, so why were they in here and dated instead of labeled with their subject number?

"Found it." He breathed looking at the front of the manila folder. Tabs stuck out of it as well as paper clips and note ends. He felt nerves start to shake his hand as he slowly went to open the file that would tell him who he was.

"Jack?" she called from the floor.

The white haired male stopped and looked down at the girl. She held several files in her hands all with different dates. She looked up at him confused,

"Why are these labeled with dates that haven't passed yet?" she asked. His brow furrowed as well and curiosity over took his need to look at his file. He had it and that was all that mattered. They needed to get out of here before he thought of reading it.

He looked close at the files and opened the first one and looked at the paper clipped photo. He knew her. Jack sighed, his blue eyes got that serious dull look again.

"These are the ones up for extermination." Jack replied. Rapunzel's eyes went wide.

"What?! They plan to kill them? All of them?"

Jack stood tucking the folder under his arm, "When experimentation goes wrong or they end being defected, Dr. Black has them sent to the extermation wing where they are systematically gassed. They burn the bodies by the batch so no one asks questions about the constant smell."

Rapunzel felt tears sting her eyes. No, this was all wrong. This was a horror film she was dreaming. This didn't really happen in real life. People couldn't be so cruel. She hugged the four files to her chest, the only files that were dated for the next week. She felt tears come down her cheeks and her shoulders shook. Jack watched her, unsure how to make it better or how to comfort her. He never comforted someone before.

"We have to help them." She said, looking up at him. Jack's eyes widened.

"Like break them out?" he said, shocked at her boldness. Rapunzel looked at him fiercely, a light was set in her tearful green eyes as she held the files tightly. She stood and looked him in the eye.

"We have to save them." She said. Jack ran a hand through his hair,

"Punz, what are we going to do with them once we save them? We don't even know what we're getting into!" he argued.

She glared at him, her little nose red with her sadness, "I didn't know what I was going to do with you but I helped you."

He was quiet.

"We have to help them, Jack. They don't deserve to die." She placed a hand on his pale arm and Jack met her eyes. He couldn't tell her no even if he wanted to. She was right. They had to do something if they had the chance. He grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the office door, handing her his file.

"Come on." He said with a smirk, pulling her toward the extermination wing.

The blonde smiled and briefly let go of his hand so that she could put all the files in her satchel that hung at her hip. She took his hand again and they jogged down the hall and toward the east wing. His steps slowed when they came the dark hall way with only six doors and further down the hall was cast into darkness. Each were like the ones before, bolted and pad locked, yet not all of them held a live body inside it.

Jack looked at the numbered doors until he found the one he knew from the photo Rapunzel showed him. He looked at the pad lock and placed his hand over the screen. The thing began to spark and spaz out as he sent his ice into its system. The sound of a dead bolt opened but just as the door swung open the alarm screamed sending echoes of wailing down the empty halls.

Jack looked inside the cell, blue eyes met with magenta.

"We have to go now!" Jack said moving on to the next door, looking through the window before doing the same thing.

Rapunzel looked inside the dark cell and saw the scared magenta eyes,

"What-Whats going on?" a womans voice ask as she moved out of the darkness of the shadows. Rapunzel gasped at the sight her. She was more than a woman, she was beautiful. Her body was covered with tiny feathers of all colors, humming bird like wings beat at her back. She was a small woman, hovering just over the ground, her arms wrapped around herself. Rapunzel gave her a smile,

"We're getting you out of here." She said just as another dead bolt opened.

"Blimey, mate! What do you think you're doin'?" an Australian voice sounded from the next cell. Both females looked at Jack as he moved on to the next cell, looking through the window,

"Saving you're ass, cotton tail." He said with a smirk before starting the same trick on the next door. A large man walked out of the cell he spoke to. He was well over six foot with tanned skin and ropes of muscles only covered by the grey attire they were forced to wear. Tattoos adorned his arms and face, his hair was greyish blue and his eyes were the deepest of bluish-green. He looked at them in shock,

"What the hell is going on?" he asked the fairy woman.

"I have no idea."

Another dead bolt sounded as the alarms still shrieked.

"We're getting you out of here but we have to go now!" she said motioning for them to follow her back the way they came. She had seen an exit back when they were in the main room near the glass dome. The two experiments looked at each other, not sure who to trust.

Jack ran past them as another man walked out of his cell, "What have you guys really got to lose? You're dead if you stay and you're dead if you get caught." He said with a sarcastic grin before grabbing Rapunzel's hand and heading back toward the west wing. Rapunzel took a look back at them before they set into motion, following the two thieves.

Yet her eyes caught a glint of something in that darkened hall.

She stopped, pulling her hand from Jack's. The white haired boy stopped as well as the others, looking back at her as she ventured into the darkness.

"Rapunzel! What the hell are you doing?!" He yelled at her.

"Get them out of here! I think…I think I know who were missing."

"Missing?!" he called back.

"Just go! I'll be right behind you!" her voice faded into the darkness as did the rest of her. Jack watched in worry and shock until the large male who followed him grabbed his arm.

"Lead the way, mate. You got us out here." The aussie scowled.

* * *

><p>Rapunzel walked into the darkness until her presence kick started the motion activated lights in the room. As soon as she saw the glass prison she knew why. The fourth death row subject wasn't a 'who'. It was a 'what'. She placed a hand over her pounding heart, her body went stiff at the sight of the creature. It was the darkest shade of black with scales and a finned tale. It got low to the ground like a cat, glaring at her with deep green eyes with its ears back. It was a dragon, a real dragon. Somehow they had created one and it had gone wrong.<p>

She looked at it, walking up to the glass. As soon as she touched the surface the thing retreated to a corner and lifted its lips at her. She knew why now. He was toothless. People like Dr. Black, people who experimented on human beings and tested creation didn't want a creature would fearsome teeth. She looked at its scared eyes, saw how the majestic mythical creature who was revered in fairytales was reduced to a cage being scared and held captive.

"I'm gonna get you out of here okay?" she said softly. The dragon paused in its low growl and simply watched her with narrowed eyes. She looked at the pad lock and noticed the worn down buttons in the bright light of the room. She began a series of different combinations.

"Did you see anyone?" a mans voice yelled over the alarm, held foot falls followed.

"No they must be heading out to the main door!"

She felt herself begin to panic inside as she tried another combination then another. Finally after the fifth try the red light on the lock blinked green. The glass doors slid open and the dragon backed away as if ready to be attacked. She stood there and held her hands out to it, showing that she was unarmed.

"I'm not going to hurt you." She said softly, "I just want to help you."

Its head rose from the ground a bit as it watched her.

"You have to trust me okay?" she said and gave him a smile that brightened her eyes despite the voices and heavy boots getting closer. "Okay?"

The dragon spread its black wings and Rapunzel watched as it approached her. Its head was as big as her entire upper body. The thing moved and lowered its head to her. She blinked in shock, but saw the scars on his neck and back of his head. They probably forced him to be submissive so they could force themselves on him. The cowards. She gently stroked its neck before moving so that she was straddling him and holding it as best she could. The thing gave her no warning before it took off with one powerful lead down the hall like a cat, it was fast. The dragon used the walls to propel itself this way and that, obviously looking for a way out. The blonde held on tightly, her eyes closed tight.

* * *

><p>"You didn't plan this out very well, ya bloody show pony!" the man cursed, glaring from his place in the backseat of the small car. Jack sat up front in the passenger seat, waiting for the girl who swore she was right behind them.<p>

"Shut it, kangaroo! We didn't have to save your ass!" he yelled back.

"Guys, please, this isn't the time to fight." The woman's voice called, her wings tucked behind her as she sat between the big man and the smaller quiet one who only gave small smiles in return.

"I'm going to go back." Jack said opening the door.

"Wait, you can't! You'll get caught!" the fairy said with a look of worry.

"It's better than just leaving her-"

A hard thump on the pavement shook the car. All eyes turned to see the massive wing span of the dragon as it settled back from its flight and down on its front legs. The white haired experiment paled as Rapunzel climbed off the beast clumsily.

"Ta-da.." she said softly as she bit her lip, waiting for the words she knew were coming.

"What..what are we going to do with that?" Jack said using the car to lean on as his legs got weak. Three sets of eyes looked at her in shock from the backseat of the car. Rapunzel laughed awkwardly as the dragon sat down on its backside and proceeded to scratch its ear.

A/N: Reviews please!


	9. Chapter 9

Her apartment never looked so small.

The cops were narrowly escaped, though they were lucky that the dragon in their possession was smart enough to follow the car over head. The animal blended into the night sky beautifully and seemed to have no trouble understanding that its life and freedom all counted on the small blonde woman who had broke it out of its prison. The calmness of the animal was missed when placed inside her car, the tension filled the empty spaces. She knew that she was not as trusted by them as she was by the dragon.

All stuffed into her living room, the five of them sat awkwardly in the warmth of the home. The large Australian man sat on the couch, back ram rod straight with his hands on his knees and his eyes on her suspiciously. The small multicolored woman fluttered just above the hard wood floors, cooing and smiling at the many pictures that Rapunzel displayed on her wall. Rapunzel finally got a better look at the shorter man who sat quietly on the couch, his hands folded in his lap. He was beautiful. His skin almost shimmered gold under the lights, his golden blonde hair was a mess yet reminded her of a rising sun. While he was a couple inches shorter than Jack, he held himself in a calm confidence, big gold colored eyes took in the things and people around him without a word.

Jack sat in the arm chair, obviously not a fan of her impromptu rescue plan. Sitting around other experiments who probably hated him was not how he planned to spend his freedom.

Rapunzel smiled forcibly and clapped her hands, "So! Umm, how about we all share something about ourselves?" She suggested. Jack rolled his eyes while the large Australian narrowed his eyes at her.

"I know them, shelia, I don't know you. What do you want with us?" He demanded. Rapunzels smile fell and the fairy woman turned to look over at them.

"Hey, she helped you so how about you show some gratitude?" Jack sneered, standing up from his place. The other man was not impressed.

"Aye, I didnt ask for her help, mate. For all I know she could be another fucking doctor. What are you, her pet?" The man stepped up to the other, both straightened their backs, chests out.

"Want to repeat that, kangaroo?" Jack smirked, ice began to crystalize around his knuckles.

"Make my night, frost bite, I've been itchin' to hit something." The ground began to rumble under the Australians feet.

"Stop it!" Rapunzel cried, pushing herself between the two of them. She pushed against Jacks chest with one hand and gave him a look, "Jack just go sit down, okay? I'm fine."

"But he-"

"Please Jack."

The white haired male sighed and gave a last glare to the man before he sat down in his chair again. Before the Australian could say anything smart ass, Rapunzel turned on him with hands on her hips.

"This is my home and there is no baiting him, got it?" She said, his lips pursed as she tried to look as serious as possible. She looked more like a blonde puppy trying to growl than anything, especially looking up at the intimidating experiment before her.

"What do you want from us?" He asked again, crossing his arms across his chest.

"To help you." She said softly, her bravado left her and she let her shoulders fall. She was tired. She wanted nothing more than to just go to bed right now and figure out everything tomorrow. She had broken the law, trespassed on government property, stole government property and now she had to hide fugitives. She had enough stress for one day.

"Why?"

"Because you are not animals. You're human beings being experimented on against your will. That's wrong." Rapunzels eyes met his. She might not know what she's doing or what was going to happen but she knew that what these doctors were doing was against everything she believed in as a medical practitioner. The man took a hard look at her, as if trying to read her soul through her eyes. The air was thick with tension and Rapunzel thought she might choke on it if he didnt believe her.

The man took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He moved back and took a seat again, his plain cotton grey shirt and pants creased and clung to him.

"I'm Aster."

Rapunzel's smile bloomed on her lips like light coming through the darkness.

As if the door had sung open by Asters trust, the feathered woman flew over to them with a bright smile and shining violet eyes, "I'm Toothiana."

Rapunzel giggled, taking a seat next to the hulking man, "Nice to meet you."

"That's Sandy." Aster said pointing a thumb to the beautiful golden man who just smiled and waved.

Rapunzel waved back with a soft smile of her own. She felt the tension leave the room if only for a moment.

"I'm Rapunzel Corona." She introduced before turning to Jack. The white haired male rolled his eyes, still slightly pouting from being pushed aside before. "And this is-"

"They know me, Punz." He mumbled.

"Dr. Blacks favorite." Aster said, "Everyone knew him. Felt sorry for him."

"Shut it." Jack glared.

Rapunzel's heart ached for her friend. He must've had it hard. No real friends, the favorite of the man who imprisoned them all. They didn't seem as lonely, as empty as Jack. As if they had accepted their fate and understood that they were taken from the real world. Her eyes widened for a moment and she looked from each person. Aster, Toothiana, Sandy...they all had names. They all knew their names.

"How did you all end up with Dr. Black?" She asked, leaning forward.

Jacks ears perked, his eyes left the wall to look at the blonde. Her question stirred something inside him. At the facility no one asked questions, not even to each other. It was an unspoken rule to not talk about the outside world because most accepted their bleak futures; all knew that they were never allowed back into society. So no one spoke of their life before being in Dr. Blacks care. For him, that was easy. He didn't have a life outside of the facility so he didn't know any better.

Aster looked at the others around him, Toothianna and Sandy's eyes fell to the ground with an air of sadness. The feathered woman hovered just over the carpet, her multicolored arms holding herself as if trying to comfort her own thoughts. The room grew quiet except for the fire place crackling. Jack watched as each reflected on their past in their own heads and he felt resentment set into his bones. He couldn't remember how or why he was in that horrible place. He had no past to comfort him. He was alone.

Aster took a breath, "He takes people who won't be missed if they're gone, people who are easily written off. He's smart like that."

Rapunzel's brow furrowed, "What do you mean?"

"I was a soldier in the army." Aster said, his voice seemed hollow and withdrawn, "I was deployed to the Middle East. I was there for a couple of months before I was a victim of friendly fire. I remember being drugged and stitched up then everything went black. I woke up and found myself at the facility."

"And no one asked any questions because-" Rapunzel mumbled softly

"-because the doctor could pronounce me dead and I would be just another dead soldier."

Rapunzel looked at the large man, his tattooed shoulders were slumped slightly, his forearms rested on his knees with large hands intertwined. No one looked for him. No one bothered to see if he was dead. They just took the word of a doctor and let him disappear. The blonde nurse felt tears sting her eyes. How cruel to rip people away from their families and lives to use them as lab rats, as if they were less than human beings.

Without warning two small arms wrapped around the Australians shoulders, barely making it around them but it was enough. The man looked to his left, a blonde head pressed against his bicep. His eyes softened. He hadn't been hugged in a very long time. He forgotten what it felt like, forgotten what it was like for someone to care.

"I'm sorry." She said softly, her breath warm on his skin. The man gave a small smile, a simple twitch of the corners of his mouth.

"It's okay, shelia." He replied.

She pulled away and wiped her eyes. She would definitely need to have some good sleep after all this. That is if she didn't get nightmares. Rapunzel tried to compose herself before she looked over at the fluttering fairy woman. It was obvious that Asters story hit home for her, the way her violet eyes shimmered with unshed tears. Her wings beat to keep her in the air, her feathers seemed to dull with her sadness.

"I was a journalist," Toothiana's soft voice whispered as she lowered herself to the couch between the two other men, "I traveled around the world and wrote for different magazines. I-I was captured somewhere in Brazil and woke up in the facility. I never-I never got to say goodbye to my family."

Rapunzel walked over to her as well, pulling her into a hug though careful of her wings. The woman hugged her back, her feathers soft on the nurse's skin. Just by the way the woman gripped her shirt, holding on as if she were going to disappear. Rapunzel wondered how long it had been since any of these people had been given a hug. Jack was the most hesitant, Aster seemed to be appreciative but Toothiana held onto her as if she had needed to be held for years.

After the tears had dried, Rapunzel pulled away slowly and looked to golden hued man next to them. His golden eyes met hers and he gave her a small smile, raising his hand to his mouth and shaking his head. Rapunzel's brow furrowed in confusion.

"He's mute." Jack mumbled from the plush chair, legs crossed with his hands in his sweat shirt pocket. His eyes didn't meet hers but looked over at her wall of pictures instead. She wasn't sure if he was avoiding her gaze or Sandy's.

The nurse scurried over to her many shelves and neatly packed white file boxes, pulling out an old notebook and a pen from her desk. She walked back to the couch and sat in front of the man on the floor, offering the new way of communication to him. The golden man nodded and smiled, taking the pen and pad and began writing down his thoughts. Everyone waited with expectation, no one had ever heard him speak or had the chance to know what was going through his head.

Sandy turned the notebook towards them.

'_I was a psychologist. I was asked to consult at Oxford. There was a plane crash.'_

"And they pronounced you dead." Aster said, his voice was a mix of empathy and anger. Sandy nodded, his comforting smile was gone and Rapunzel felt like a light had went out.

"Was it because of the plan crash that you can't speak?" the nurse asked. Sandy shook his head and brought his notebook back to his lap. He turned to the next page and began to writing again.

'_Dr. Black.'_

Rapunzel was on her feet instantly, wrapping her arms around the man. The golden man smiled again and hugged her back, patting her head since it seemed that she had begun crying again without realizing it.

"Why-why would Black do that?" she said softly.

"He's a psychologist." Jack spoke up, still not looking at them, "He knew what was going on, knew the people involved and threatened Black's sick game. So he cut out his tongue."

The room went quiet while the others hung their heads in sadness for the seemingly happy man. Rapunzel moved away from him and stood in the middle of her living room, eyes taking in each grey clad experiment before her. She had run out of tears now, probably wouldn't be able to cry until tomorrow but her resolve settled. Something inside her had awakened and she knew that there was no walking away from this now.

"I won't let them take you." She said, her hands in fists at her sides. Each one raised their eyes and looked at the petite blonde, even Jack. "I'm not sure what I'm doing and I don't know exactly what is going on anymore, but I promise you that I won't let them take you again."

No one said anything but the looks had changed. The skepticism had fallen away and was replaced with something close to gratefulness. A softness came to each of their eyes that could not be hidden by their situation as bleak it was. Rapunzel took a deep breath, her mind made up. Jack knew as well as anyone that once she put her mind to something, there was no turning back for her. The experiments watched the blonde nurse make her way to the linen closet in the hallway.

Jack stood from his seat and followed her quietly, helping her pull pillows and blankets from the top shelf where she couldn't reach. The quietness between them was still odd, both were used to speaking candidly yet ever since he had met Eugene, it had been different. He felt like he was encroaching on her space, being a burden but mostly he felt guilty for every passing feeling of admiration he had for her.

"I know you don't want to but maybe you could stay in my room tonight so that Toothianna could have the bedroom," her voice was quiet as if she was ready for him to refuse her offer.

Jack took the folds of blankets from her arms, "That's fine."

His eyes met hers. Her smile was gone for the night, the hour was breaking into early morning and her face reflected it. The pink in her cheeks had faded and the lines under her eyes seemed more prominent. The green orbs that were bright and full of life seemed dull and tarnished. And it was all his fault.

"You can go to bed, I'll get everyone settled," he said softly. He didn't wait for his reply only turned around and headed back to the living room. He didn't feel guilt usually, not much to feel guilty about when stuck in a cell all day. He could hear her soft steps walk towards her bedroom behind him and he let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

"Tooth, you get the bedroom. It's down the hall to the right," Jack said. The feathered woman nodded and floated down the hall to the bedroom. Jack threw the blankets and pillows onto the couch and the recliner. "Kangaroo and Sandy, you get the living room."

For the first time, Aster didn't respond to the nickname, his eyes were on the blankets given to him. Sandy simply nodded and placed himself in the recliner, spreading out the blanket and settling himself. Aster had no such luxury, everything inside him was telling him to run as fast as possible the other way but something about seeing Jack living like a normal person, seeing a nurse sympathize with them, kept him there.

"So we just wait?" Aster mumbled. Jack looked at him and shrugged,

"Unless you have a better idea."

"And she's just okay with us being here?"

Jack looked down the dark hallway, his bedroom door was closed but Rapunzels was cracked open for him.

"Kinda weird huh?" Jack replied with a small smile playing at his lips. Aster didn't respond, only took Sandy's lead and kicked off his shoes.

Jack took that as his cue and made his way back down the hall, turning out the lights as he did so. He thought about checking on the dragon on the roof but knew that since there were no police sirens or FBI knocking at their door, it was safe to say that the reptile was keeping to itself up there. The experiment turned out the light in the hall, pushing open the door of Rapunzel's bedroom.

The lights were already out, the moon light came in through the window onto the painted walls and bedspread. She was sitting up against the headboard, her eyes watching her fingers as they played with the softness of the down comforter. She had changed into her pajamas, her hair was brushed and fell down her back in soft waves. She looked both in thought and lost at the same time, yet he found his heart beating a bit faster at the idea that she might have been waiting for him.

Jack walked into the room and closed the door behind him, pushing off his socks with his toes as he walked to the bed. The blonde didn't look at him even as he took off his shirt, letting it fall to the ground following his jeans. There was no reaction from her, she only kept her eyes down and let him slip into the bed with her. It wasn't sexual or suggestive, the atmosphere was too thick with sadness and stress.

Rapunzel laid down on her side, looking at Jack as he did the same much like the first night they shared her bed only this time the tables have turned.

"I have no idea what I'm doing," she whispered.

Jack gave her a small smile, "I know."

The blonde moved toward him and the experiment opened his arms for her, allowing her to bury her head into his chest. He pulled the blankets up for her, his arms wrapped around her shoulders, taking in her scent of vanilla of her skin and lilacs of her hair. It was odd after living here for a couple of days, he always thought that she was the strong one of the two of them.

He guessed even heroes got scared.


End file.
