Just an idea I wrote up a while ago ;)
Disclaimer: An old habit to write a disclaimer I'm afraid, but neither work is owned by myself.
Jack had loved playing with Ellie. She had never failed to run out on a snow day, inventing all kinds of adventures. Plus, she had a devious streak- she was playground queen of snowball fights and had set up an elaborate plan to trap the tooth fairy when she lost her front tooth. Without her unfailing generous nature, she would have been a contender for North's naughty list. Jack, not normally interested but watching from afar, was positively gleeful at the little fairy's exasperation when she arrived to see a complicated trigger system attached to the pillow. The ensuing incident, which proved how tough tooth fairies really were, led to several awkward minutes after he was caught laughing. He remained perpetually clueless as to why the little fairy kept swooning.
However, Jack also loved her for her kindness, especially when she started dragging along the cute goggled kid with her. Jack could see Carl was deathly shy and whilst he always wanted to play games with other kids, he couldn't always see how. That never mattered to Ellie; she always made him feel included. In a small way, with her fun loving nature, she always made Jack feel included too.
When Ellie had first met Carl, Jack had delighted in helping her tease the almost silent boy in winter. One clear morning, after he'd spent the night up with the Sandman and had in a happy mood brought a gentle snow fall in the night, Jack watched Ellie and Carl chase the snowflakes with wholehearted joy. Even though South America was their ultimate goal, Ellie declared they would go on holiday to the South Pole to see all the snow and penguins. After all, adventurers never stopped explorin'. Even Jack was taken aback by Carl's loud and enthusiastic "yeah!" but he laughed along with the children, before stirring up the wind to playfully tug at Carl's balloon as he left to leave them to their planning. He had heard her extensive plans from Ellie quite a few times before, so he left with no regrets. Carl had never seemed to get bored, he thought with fondness.
What he loved most, though, was when she got big she didn't stop having fun. Jack had watched it with a thousand kids growing up, in a thousand different ways- the grandiose dreams of childhood turning into something with less pomp and ceremony but no less worthwhile. Every now and then he would visit the zoo where Ellie and Carl worked- never failing to stir up the balloons a little with his old friend the wind. He would only realize it later of course, but the way in which Ellie and Carl spent so much time giving joy to children in their lives was worthy of the Guardians.
Jack had been busy for the first time in years when he became a guardian and Pitch had reared his ugly head and been defeated. So he found the little old clubhouse again several years after he'd been meaning to visit, Jack was devastated to find Carl sitting on his porch alone and surrounded by the screeches of modern building machinery. He pulled his hood down low and settled, perched, on the railing of the porch.
"Carl… I'm so sorry."
The words of comfort were lost and Carl shivered in the cold wind.
Jack had a plan. It was a convoluted, crazy, probably irresponsible plan which Bunny would call insane after demanding he got his head checked out- but it was a plan nonetheless. And it occurred quite spontaneously. He hated seeing Carl alone, becoming grouchier and bitter. Nothing at all like the sweet soul Ellie had spent her life with. As much as he hated to admit it, there was no quick fix-it.
Russell, the wilderness explorer, was the key. Jack had floated around the neighborhood after he discovered Ellie's loss- watching Carl now was too privacy invading. He had been looking for anything to catch his interest, when he saw the little boy bouncing down the pavement, going from door to door apparently looking for old people.
"Kid, kid… you're going about it all wrong!" Jack told him, watching as Russell walked dejectedly from the last house on the block. Russell didn't hear him, or respond, but that was ok. It had been entertaining, at least. "The last lady really wasn't that old, even if she is three times your age."
"I just want to help an old person." Russell lamented.
"Hey, maybe you could help me! I am like, fifty times your age. But I don't need help really, not now. I wonder how old North and Bunny are… I know Tooth has got to be five hundred… you could probably see them. You're a good kid. I'm sure you're on the nice list." Jack mused, before a bright spark of an idea entered his eyes. "Hey, I know someone! He's only round the block from here! Don't give up yet! You two would get on great… probably!"
Russell sighed again, but hit himself on the sides of his face. "Come on! There's got to be old people around here somewhere!"
"That's the spirit!" Jack said, proudly. It was when he saw Russell's determination that he faltered. He knew just the guy who was missing that. Stirring up the wind, which had lazily been circling him, he grinned. "Time to play a game of tag."
Russell yelped in surprise as a gust of wind blew the cap from his head. The chase continued merrily into the new industrial area of the city, where men in suits and orange vests were milling around.
Russell looked up in delight, when he spotted the elderly Mr. Fredrickson walk back into his house. "He's definitely old enough!"
Of course, as it turns out, he had vastly underestimated Carl Fredrickson.
The floating house? Totally awesome.
If he gave them a little hand with that storm to get them to Paradise Falls, who was to know?