Sometimes... sometimes it is far too easy to forget.

It's the little things at first. What day it is. What dream Sandy sent me last night.

Then the things get bigger. What day is Easter, again? Where am I supposed to be spreading winter at the moment?

Then one day North was over, and he kept mentioning someone named Jamie. And I just nodded like I knew what he was talking about.

North doesn't come over as often anymore. Neither does Sandy or Tooth. I keep getting the feeling that there was another, that I had another friend, but I can't recall his name... it's a miracle I can remember- who was I talking about, again? I can't remember.

"Huh. Must've been unimportant, then."

"Talking to yourself is the first sign of insanity, they say." Someone drawls beside me, and I look over to see a man with sallow skin, swept back black hair, and the hugest golden eyes I've ever seen. He's decked out in black and leaning against the wall I'm working on, all nonchalant, but watching me with those big gold eyes so intently that I get the inexplicable feeling that I'm prey, and tighten my grip on my staff.

How strange.

I wonder if he's actually looking at me, though. A bizarre amount of people seem unable to see me, though I don't remember why. They just seem to look right through me. Maybe this man's just staring in my general direction, and his words were actually directed towards himself. Maybe he thinks himself insane.

I wonder what it's like to be insane.

"Excuse me, but do I know you?" I ask. Best to check these things, whether or not he can see me. If yes, then great, a new friend. I can't wait to intoduce him to the old ones, whatever their names were. (Sandy, I remember Sandy. Teeth?)

And if not, then I won't trouble myself. I'll just continue creating more frost on the wall. I know that's what I was doing; I can remember that.

The man's eyes widen further, if that's even possible, before returning to their normal wide, and an equally wide smirk stretches his thin ashen lips.

I want to frost them, kinda. And then touch them. And then slap him. I'm not sure why.

But I want to hurt him and get away from him.

I squish that feeling down.

"No. No I don't believe you do." He murmurs, looking at me like I'm his food.

I certainly hope he isn't going to eat me. That would just be dreadful, though I'm not sure why. I don't remember why. Yet I can feel it, in my belly of all places, that being eaten would not be pleasant at all.

"Oh." I answer, before offering my free hand, the one not holding my cane, for him to shake.

"I'm Jack Frost. Nice to meet you."

He smirks wider as he takes my hand, and stares me right in the eyes, as if searching for something. "Pitch Black, the Nightmare King." He announces, and drops my hand. He looks almost disappointed when I just nod and continue frosting the wall. What was he expecting? Do people usually expect things after introductions? I can't recall.
"Do you usually stare at people like this?" I ask a few minutes later, because that's what he's been doing. Staring. Staring at me like he can't decide what to do next.

"No. I just expected a bit more, I guess."

I look over my wall. "Is it really that bad? I'm not really in the right mood today, I'll admit, but I thought the design over there were quite brilliant of me." I say, pointing to my favorite patch so far. It looks a bit like a horse, but skeletal, with swirling patters around it that for some reason make me think of black sand.

I think I've done it before but I'm not sure.

Pitch's eyes widen and return to normal again before he pushes off the wall and stalks past me, going over to run his fingers along the frosty horse's side.

"Yes." He all but purrs. "Yes, quite brilliant. Remarkable, even. Tell me, Mr Frost,"

"Call me Jack." I tell him, and he nods in acceptance, though he looks a bit peeved by the interruption.

"Yes. Jack. Do you have many friends, Jack?"

I'm a bit confused as to why he'd ask that, but I'm lonely, I decide, so I think I'll answer anyways. I don't want him to leave, and I can't remember the last time I talked to someone who could see me.

I don't want to be alone. I know being alone upsets me. I could never forget that; forget loneliness.

"A few. Lessee, there's Sandy," Pitch nodded along. Maybe he knows Sandy too. "Teeth," Pitch raised a hairless brow at me, and I struggled to remember another. There was another, I was sure. An animal, of some sort. Big. Good at jumping. "and, uh... Kangaroo?" I guess, and suddenly Pitch is laughing, which strikes me as sort of odd, because I have this weird feeling, like I know he's not the laughing type, and like I know that him laughing is a bad thing.

But that's ridiculous. I can't have possibly met him before. Even with my memory, I'd remember those eyes, I'm certain. There's no way I could take the time to stare into those big golden eyes and forget them. Right? And that laugh, too. I couldn't forget that.

Pitch has a lovely laugh. A bit evil sounding, if that's a thing. A sort of villainy laugh. But nice. Deep and kind of like a cackle, but better. Too lovely to ignore.

"Tell me, Jack," Pitch says once he calms down. I'm almost finished with the wall now; I'll be leaving soon. "have you seen any if them recently?"

I don't see how that's any of his business, and stay silent. But he seems to take that as a no. Maybe it is. And maybe I haven't.

"Well then, Jack, would you like it if I was your friend too? I could come by every day, and we could do all sorts of things." Pitch says, and I feel in my belly that I should say no, that this is somehow terrible.

But my heart says yes because I'm lonely, and I don't really listen to my mind nowadays, so I don't bother to ask its opinion.

"I would love that."

And then Pitch leaves, and I put the finishing touches on the wall, and wonder if I imagined him. But then I see the places on the frost horse that are just slightly melted from his fingertips, and figure either he must be real, or that I put them there and forgot about it.

But my fingers are too cold to melt anything.

So it must be the former. I really hope it isn't the latter. I think a friend could be nice. It's not like I have any others, since Jamie died.

xXx

The man does come back. I can't quite remember his name, but I knew he's my friend. He said he would be.

"Hello, Jack." The man purrs in greeting, and I send another flurry of snowflakes down to the ground below us before I turn to him with a smile on my face. I hope my teeth are white. I don't know why, but suddenly I'm concerned with my dental hygiene. Have I flossed?

"Hi!" I say. I still can't recall his name. I'll have to ask. It's best to be blunt. "What was your name again?"

He frowns at me, as if offended. I suppose that forgetting his name was rather rude of me. After all, he remembered mine.

Jack. Jack Frost. Even I wouldn't forget my own name.

"Pitch Black." He drawls, and I smile brightly at him before looking back down.

"Wanna see something funny, Pitch?" I ask, and he leans first forward, then back, then forward again, like he can't decide.

"I suppose."

So I send a bigger flurry down, so big that the wind blows things over and the snow piles up like crazy. I can hear yells and shrieks, and I turn to grin at Pitch.

"Pretty cool, huh?"

He gives me a shark grin that makes my heart skip a beat, and nods.

"Quite."

We stay there for a while, up in the air, me on the wind and... I don't actually know how he is flying, come to think of it. Maybe I asked already though, and I forgot the answer. I don't want to chance it and ask again and appear even ruder. What if he thought I didn't pay attention to him, and got angry and left? I don't want that to happen.

I don't want to be left behind.

I pay plenty of attention to him, I think. For instance, all I can think about right now are his eyes, and I start sending down sleet instead of snow because for some reason I can't remember, but sleet definitely suits his eyes better.

But I can't actually remember what color his eyes are right now, so I have to look up, and to my surprise we meet gazes. Was he staring at me?

His eyes are big, and gold, and cold, colder then any of my sleet.

I instantly adore them.

"Has anyone ever told you that you have awesome eyes?" I ask, and as Pitch shakes his head, I feel like hurting him. I'm not sure why. But I hate it. I absolutely hate the feeling, the want. Because I don't ever want to hurt him. Or forget him. I want to remember him and his gold eyes and weird hair and apparent ability for flying.

Because he's apparently my friend.

And that's how people treat friends, right? People never hurt their friends, right? I can't recall. But even if it isn't how it is, I'll still do it. Still never hurt him.

"Oh. Well you do." I eventually say, and those golden eyes gleam at me. I feel like prey.

We stay a bit longer before he leaves, and I send a few good sized hailstones down in his wake for good measure, because he seems like the type to enjoy drama and because I can no longer remember the color of Pitch's cloak.

No, that's not right. It was black. Befitting of a Nightmare King.

And I suddenly wonder, as I send one last bunch of hail down, what a Nightmare King is.

And then I leave.

xXx

There's something trailing up and down my back, and it's delightfully warm, and I somehow know what it is.

Because what else warm is there? What else is there that melts my ice?

"Pitch." I greet, and mentally pat myself on the back for remembering his first name for the first time in the week we've been friends. I can't remember his second, though.

"Jack." He returns, and pulls his hand away from where it had finally rested on my shoulder. I'm sitting on a park bench, watching children who can't see me play and tumble around, and feeling this weird feeling in my chest that says that one of them is missing. But I don't know which. But there should be something... brown hair. And... laughter? Or is it tears? I can't remember. I don't know any of them, anyhow, so I don't know why I'm looking.

I wish he'd put his hand back. I can't remember when someone last touched me. I miss the warmth so much I decide to do something bad, and send a wind so strong it knocks one of the littlest children face down into the slushy snow, and it takes a while before she pops back up, red-faced and crying, her blond hair a wet mess now.

"How have you been?" He asks, sounding so pleasant, sounding so wrong, though I'm not sure why. It seems like a normal question to ask.

"Oh, I'm fine. How about you? Do anything fun recently? Any nice Nightmares?" Nightmares. Where did that come from? Let alone nice nightmares? Can there even be nice nightmares?

Pitch sits down beside me and crosses one leg over the other, then gives me this long look. His eyes look nice. And I like his hair. Mine is fluffy and white, like the snow I make, but his is swept straight back and the deepest shade of black, like the shadows that are cast by something sharp. And he's still giving me a look, like he can't figure something out. I practically jump when he finally speaks again.

"Yes, now that you mention it," He says, and I can't remember what he's talking about. But I just nod like I can remember anything other then his voice and conflicting needs to hurt and to protect. "I gave a little girl a wonderful nightmare just last night. It was about her family leaving her."

I suck in a breath, and let it out slowly. "That's sad." I say, and he raises a hairless brow in questioning, but it somehow feels accusing. "I mean, not the nightmare part. It's just sad that she's afraid of her family leaving her."

"Oh? And why is that sad? Most people are scared of such things."

"Really? But that's the stupidest thing ever!" I blurt, then immediately want to hit myself over the head with my cane, because Pitch doesn't look very impressed at the moment, and it makes me want to scream. "I just- I mean- what's so good about family?" I try to amend, even though I know this is going to make it worse, and immediately look down again. I was never good with words, could never get the right ones out at the right time. That's why Bunny was so angry.

"I mean... I never had one. But I get along fine. So what's so great about them?"

I chance a tiny glance up, and see... a smiling Pitch. Pitch doesn't have a very nice smile. Or maybe he does. It just looks very dark. Like he's hatching a plot to destroy the earth as we speak.

If he is, I hope he'll ask me to help. I'm dreadfully bored.

"Yes, what? What is so good about having someone you have to look after, when you could have someone to simply work with, who you're not tied down with? Who you can just laugh and destroy things with?" He asks, and I nod along, surprised that he understands. The others never understood. Not even Jamie. "Would you like to do that? Work with me?" I nod again, and he laughs, and I remember that I like his laugh, because even if it sounds a bit evil, it's deep, and it's warm, just like the hand that is once again on my shoulder, making my breath catch and legs shiver. Especially when it starts dropping down, once again warmth trailing down my back.

I have a sudden craving for hot cocoa and touching Pitch's face.

"Well then." Pitch purrs as he stands up, stretching elegantly. He's so long you'd think he'd be awkward, but he's not. He's damnably graceful. And I'm oh so envious. "I'll see you tomorrow, and maybe we can get started on some of that work." And he's gone, and for the first time I see how it happens, how black sand bursts up from nowhere and swallows him like he's the most delectable thing it has ever seen.

"Bye." I echo, but he's already gone.

And this time I can remember that his cloak is black.

xXx

We do work. We sprint from house to house, I with cold, and Pitch making children cry out in their sleep. And I feel a bit bad about it, but that's mostly overridden by the joy of finally having someone there with me, who can see me, who will talk back.

I don't know if I've had anyone else to talk to before, aside from the moon.

And it's nice to be answered.

Because the moon never did that.

Well, there's my first try at a Rise of the Guardians story. The plot should be obvious, but if you can't pick it up, it's that Jamie died and Jack separated himself from everyone else in order to grieve. The other guardians tried to help at first, but they just made it worse, and eventually stopped trying. And after a while Jack simply started to forget all of them. And forget Jamie too. He still remembers sometimes, but for the most part, he's just a blank slate, thus why he lets Pitch get close to him. He has this inkling feeling, this unremembered memory, that Pitch is a bad guy, but for the most part, he's so lonely by now that he doesn't care. So Pitch decides to take advantage of that.

Anyhow, many thanks for reading, and please review! Any flames will be celebrated like crazy because I have yet to get one, and I feel like it's some weird ritual of acceptance into the fanfic community? Byeeeee!