A guest reviewer requested a follow-up one-shot to my story Fear Not Cold nor Darkness. It is not necessary to read that story to understand this one but it is recommended.
Cover image created using Pic Collage
Enjoy.
–
Jack had not moved from Jamie's bedside.
His friend was gone. Jack couldn't accept the fact that his friend was gone.
It didn't seem fair!
Jack had lost the will to stand and so he knelt down trying to speak past the lump in his throat and the tears in his eyes.
"I'm sorry."
No reply.
Jack almost choked on his own voice but he pressed on through the tears.
"I'm sorry, that I wasn't around as much as I should have been, as much as I wanted to be."
Still no response.
Jack hoped for a reply but knew he wouldn't get one.
"I'm here now though, so let's talk about something…... Remember the sledding incident? The one that knocked out your tooth? That wasn't such a bad day was it, you got to hang out with me and see the tooth fairy in the same day."
A small, trembling smile tugged at the corner of Jack's mouth.
"Or the time that I made the lake freeze over in May so you and Sophie could go ice skating?"
"The times I made really bad snowstorms so you and your friends didn't have to go to school and could stay home to drink hot chocolate and watch movies?"
"Snow on Easter? Bunny doesn't mind it so much anymore as long as it's not too deep. We get along okay now me and Bunny….most of the time."
Another memory stuck Jack then, something Jamie had said to him when Jamie was fourteen and it was finally too much effort to hold back his tears.
–
"Cupcake doesn't believe in Santa Claus anymore, I told her that was ridiculous because she's seen him before! She said I was the one being ridiculous and told me to grow up!"
Jamie folded his arms and stared at Jack with a rare dead serious look on his face.
"I'm never going to grow up! Because then I'd stop seeing you and life wouldn't be fun anymore."
"... do you think they'll make me a Guardian too Jack? Then we could hang out all the time!"
That had surprised Jack.
"Well I'm not sure how Guardians are chosen." Jack had replied. Jack knew that he was chosen because he'd saved his sister from drowning but he didn't want to tell Jamie that for fear it would make him think that he had to do something dangerous to prove himself; but this was Jamie the kid had pretty much saved all of the Guardians because he'd never given up his hope.
"If anyone deserves to be a Guardian it's you." Jack had agreed.
–
But now….he wasn't so sure he wanted that for Jamie. To be a Guardian was to become immortal he wasn't sure he wanted to place that cursed gift on Jamie's shoulders.
And right now he wasn't so sure that he even wanted it himself either… What happened when a Guardian stopped believing in themselves?
Jack looked down at his hands- vision blurry from his tears- half expecting to witness himself dissolving into snow- but he remained solid, unchanged. The same.
He looked at Jamie who was not the same.
Greif threatened to consume him again but he shoved the feeling down he'd already made a mess because he'd lost control.
He always made a mess of things.
Suddenly the bedroom door swung open and an old woman stood in the doorway, outlined by the light pouring in from the hallway.
She stared, utterly taken aback by the disarray that the room was in.
"Jamie what on Earth did you do?!"
Silence.
Jack observed the woman as she came into the room, stepping around broken glass and fallen pictures as best she could in her slippers.
"James Bennett you answer me right now, old man!"
Silence. Jack tried to say that the mess had not been Jamie's fault but his own. His voice didn't seem to work anymore.
The woman came to stand on the other side of Jamie's bed, across from Jack but the winter spirit went unnoticed.
"Jamie? Don't ignore me!... big brother….please?"
Big brother? Wait….
"Sophie?" Jack asked as the realization dawned on him of who this woman was.
The woman's head snapped up and she looked across the room.
The tears in her eyes dried up and her voice came out shaking with anger.
"That's how you caught your death! You left the window open, you fool!"
Jack jumped to his feet, startled by the anger flashing in Sophie's eyes as the old woman marched around the bed and toward the window.
On instinct Jack retreated towards the window as well. "Hey, wait don't close-"
The words died in Jack's throat as he stepped in front of Sophie intending to stop her from reaching the window and closing off his easy exit.
Sophie walked right through him.
Sophie couldn't see him.
Sophie didn't believe in him.
Jack had lost them both.
He summoned a gust of wind to push him back to the window, and once again he was in front of Sophie.
And saw grief on her face that mirrored his own.
"Gone and froze himself to death." Sophie muttered.
Jack tried to push down the guilt that settled in his stomach at those words.
Sophie reached out to pull the window shut, hissing when she cut herself on broken glass.
Jack flinched when he saw the cut start to bleed.
You do make a mess of everything.
He thought miserably.
It was best if he left.
So the wind pulled him backwards, past Sophie and out of the window and a moment later Sophie had pulled the window shut.
Jack could have gone back into the room if he wanted, the window glass was shattered if he wanted to he could crawl back into that room; he was a spirit so he wasn't at risk of injuring himself on the jagged pieces of glass that were still in the window frame.
He didn't have the heart to enter the room again, the shards of glass might as well have been barbed wire.
The message was clear.
He'd been shut out.
–
"Jack!" He looked up to see Tooth flying towards him looking a bit frantic.
"Jack! Where on Earth have you been? It's been two weeks! Everyone was starting to get worried."
"I've been here." Jack replied in monotone. Staring at the ice of the lake underneath his feet trying to avoid Tooth's concerned scrutiny.
Something nudged his fingertips and he fought the small smile that was emerging on his lips.
"Hi, Baby Tooth."
The little hummingbird-like fairy chipped, happy to be acknowledged.
"Jack everyone's worried. We….know what happened to Jamie. We know his light went out on the globe."
Jack went tense but said nothing, though ice began to spread outward from his feet, betraying his inner turmoil.
"We... thought you might want these to cheer you up." Jack looked up, Tooth was holding a golden memory capsule in her hand.
His memory capsule. Why would he want that? How was that supposed to help him?
"I don't want it." Jack whispered, voice breaking. The ice below his feet that had been spreading outward, cracked spider-webbing outward.
"Jack I don't think-"
"I said I don't want it." The wind howled in response to his distress.
Tooth was pushed backwards a few feet in the air as she battled against the wind.
"Okay, okay. I won't make you take them." She raised her hands in a placating gesture, flying towards the shore of the lake in an attempt to escape the miniature tempest of wind.
That was as far as she would go.
Jack wished she would leave him alone.
"I'll just leave these over here in case you change your mind," she set the golden tube down on the snowy lake shore.
"And….when you're ready to talk about it. You can talk to me- to any of us- we're there for you Jack and these are here. You can keep them...if you want." She pointed to the capsule one last time before letting out a disappointed sigh and zipping back the way she'd come.
Jack froze the ice once more, reinforcing the cracks in the ice before he sat down cross-legged and stared over at where Tooth had left the memory container.
There was a squeak from inside his jacket and Baby Tooth wormed her way out of Jack's pocket. She must have taken shelter there from the wind.
The little fairy gave another squeak, looking between Jack and the memory tube, a pleading look in her eyes.
Jack shook his head and turned his face away from her bringing his knees up to his chest.
A few minutes passed in silence.
Baby Tooth gave a loud insistent chirp.
"What?" Jack snapped.
Chirp.
"No."
Chirp.
"I'm not going to look at the- OW!"
Baby Tooth withdraw her beak from Jack's hand an apology flashing in her eyes before she gave one more chirp.
Jack sighed.
"Fine, but only because your beak is sharp and I don't want you to peck me again."
Jack stood, summoning a small wind to lift and carry him to the lake shore he picked up the memory capsule and brushed the snow off, glancing at the picture on the side.
It wasn't his memory capsule.
It was Jamie's.
Excitement gripped him for a pure moment before hesitation and doubt came crashing back down.
He traced the green and blue diamond pattern on the capsule.
I shouldn't look at these.
They were Jamie's memories not his something about looking at them felt wrong, as if he was going to break some form of unspoken trust by doing so.
He didn't open it, but he didn't put it back on the ground either he stood there with it in his hand.
He should give it to Sophie. Sophie was going through the same thing that he was, worse even because Jamie had been her brother.
He should give it to Sophie, but now that he had it, now that he knew what it was he didn't want to give it up.
Selfish.
How could he be so selfish?
"Come on, Baby Tooth."
–
There was a large bay window that would have been ideal for entering the house but it didn't open.
He circled around the house, unfamiliar with the layout. He could have gone in through the bedroom window but he didn't want to go in through there again, it had been weeks she had likely had the window replaced.
There was a series of excited chirps that broke into Jack's quiet contemplation.
"What is it, Baby Tooth? Did you find a way in?"
The little fairy chirped again, spinning in the air around Jack's head.
"Show me."
Sophie was sitting in a chair in the living room, with the look of someone who was staring off into space.
Jack stood in the doorway that separated the kitchen from the living room.
Sophie's eyes didn't focus on him.
He set the memory capsule down and pushed it across the floor.
Now that the capsule had been released from his hand it began visible as it rolled across the floor to come to rest in front of Sophie's chair.
Sophie picked it up, turning it over in her hands no doubt trying to figure out what it was.
She must have seen the small picture of Jamie because in the next instant she was frantically trying to get the thing open.
Jack crossed the room, afraid she'd somehow break it and pressed his unseen hand to the center of the capsule.
Sophie went absolutely still.
Whatever she was seeing. It was making her cry.
Jack however was left completely in the dark as to what exactly she was seeing.
Only about a minute had passed before she was blinking the tears from her eyes.
She went still again, starting at the memory capsule for a moment before her eyes focused on his hand and moved slowly up to his face.
"Jack?"
He grinned. "Long time, no see."
She was hugging him before he'd barely gotten the words out of his mouth.
She was surprisingly strong for an old lady but then again Jack hadn't been hugged by any old people before so he probably wasn't the best judge of stuff like that.
She was taller than him now which was also weird.
"Thank you." She whispered.
He didn't say anything, just rested his chin on her shoulder and hugged her back.
She pulled away from him, once again struggling to hold back tears.
"I-I needed that... the night he died... I wasn't there for him and I heard this awful noise and the room was an absolute mess but he was still in the bed... and he was already gone."
"Sorry... about the mess and the broken window... that was my fault. I kind of lost it."
"That was you who made the mess? Oh, oh Jack I'm so sorry! I didn't know you were there." Her hand flew to her mouth. "I insulted you probably right to your face! I said Jamie had froze to death! I'm sorry Jack I didn't mean-"
"Hey, hey it's okay, water under the bridge. You just gotta promise me you'll look after this for me okay?"
He pushed the golden memory capsule into her hands and she nodded, clutching the object to her chest.
Jamie might have been gone but between the two of them and the memory capsule it would be a long time yet before the name Jamie Bennett was forgotten, there were consequences to being immortal. Jack understood that now, but there could be benefits too.