Jamie blinked his eyes open at the sound of sobbing- deep, heart wrenching, rib breaking sobs. He could feel someone under him, and see the moon above them, and little else.
"Rise, little Guardian. Rise, and be known as the New Nightmare King. Do as you have done and guard the children of the world."

And then Jamie saw the rest of the world, saw tears streaking down Jack's face, and he remembered the deathly black arrow Pitch had hit him with. It pierced his ribs, his heart, his lungs- he felt cold and hot and as if he was melting all at the same time, and then...

He'd died.

Except dead people didn't wake up in the sobbing arms of their best friend (and if the two admitted it, maybe something more than that?), and come to think of it, dead people didn't have heartbeats, and Jamie could feel his pounding like a drum in his head.

Around him Jamie could taste fear... Four people afraid of something, of... Jack? But Jack wasn't anyone to be afraid of! he was... He was fun times and snow days and late nights spent flying beneath the moonlight, with its glow as their only guide and the wind their ever silent companion.

And then he felt the powerful swirl of intelligence and subdued fear that made no sense until his mind supplied the word 'Nightmares' to him, unbidden but not unwelcome. Then he felt the world. So much fear, all right there, ready to be used, ready to be fed off of, ready...
Ready to be used to protect the very children that made it in the first place.

And beneath all that fear, closest to him but so far away never the less, he caught a whiff of something- not fear, and nowhere near as enjoyable, but similar. It was... It was despair, and it was coming from Jack. With a fearsome struggle (and it was a struggle), Jamie raised his hand to touch Jack's hair, and heard a gasp (From Toothiana, he supposed, because the Tooth Fairy was very much like a mother to both him and Jack- and because he couldn't ever immagine North or Bunny sounding so feminine.), and then felt Jack stiffen before the two locked eyes...

And then lips.

"Rise, and stay with him forever as you will. I owe him that much."