Snow fell lightly over the moonlit Burgess, making a beautiful display. A pair of intent blue eyes watched as a teenaged couple walked hand in hand down the street, talking and laughing. Smirking, the pale young teen bounded down from rooftop and on to a street lamp closer to the couple.
"I can't believe you did your science report on the Loch Ness monster!" the young teen girl exclaimed, shoving her male companion teasingly who groaned at the mention of the paper.
"Mr. Brewer said that he would've given me an A if the monster existed," he sighed. "Non-believer."
The girl gave him a friendly smile and tilted her head, her reddish-brown hair falling over her shoulder. "Considering what we've seen, Jaime, I'd say that anything is worth believing in."
Jaime stopped in his tracks and pulled the girl closer to him. "Pippa-" She placed her hand over his mouth before leaning in with her eyes closed. Jaime was just closing his eyes and preparing to meet his lips with her own when he felt something cold and slushy hit his head. A surprised shriek came from Pippa and the two opened their eyes to find each other completely drenched in pearly white snow.
"Jaaack," they simultaneously groaned, looking up at where the snow fall had come from. A satisfied laugh emanated all around them and was followed by Jack landing in front of the pair twirling the wooden "G"-shaped staff in his hand. He hadn't aged a single day since Jaime had been the first to believe in him, and thus see him, ten years ago. His boyish grin with perfect white teeth cheekily gleamed in the street light and his unkempt white hair fluttered in the light breeze. He still wore the same blue hooded sweatshirt with frost accents and faded brown pants with the leather strips wrapped around the bottoms. Twiddling his toes in the snow and bringing his staff to an upright position, Jack Frost looked at the soaked teens and chuckled once more.
"Oh man! That was a good one! You have to admit it, Jaime!" When he was only greeted by silence and a disapproving look from his friend, Jack immediately stopped his celebration and went, "What? It was funny!"
"No it wasn't, Jack," Jaime tersely responded, crossing his arms across his chest. "We were about to-"
"About to what?" Jack interrupted. His eyes lit up with understanding when he saw both Jaime's and Pippa's faces flush deep red. "Ohhh," he teasingly said. "You were going to kiss each other?"
Pippa piped up and went, "Yes! Only you interrupted us!"
"You've got to learn that sometimes, Jack, we don't want to take part in your fun and games. We're getting older." At Jaime's words, Jack's gleeful face fell despondently at the sudden reminder that his friends wouldn't always be around and that them growing up could mean his absolute worst fear coming true.
"Once you become adults, then you're going to forget me?"
"No!" The two teens simultaneously shouted.
"Of course not, Jack!" Jaime insisted. "We will never stop believing in you, you're our friend and our Guardian as we are to you." Still not believing him, Jack turned away from the pair so they couldn't see the tears that were starting to well up in his eyes. He deeply inhaled several breaths as his friends continued to try and comfort him with promises that he couldn't hear through his own panicked thoughts. North had warned him that one day the children that had believed in him first would get older and gradually forget him, but he hadn't realized that that day could finally be upon him very soon. Pippa was eighteen now with Jaime turning eighteen in the next few days and the two would be graduating high school in the spring and moving forward in their life while he, Jack Frost, remained behind. Nothing but an innocent childhood memory that they would one day possibly mistake as over exaggerated dreams and make-believe play.
The more his thoughts raced around in his mind, the more he realized that they were already moving on from him. They had been spending time and talking with him less frequently and there had been brief moments where he got the feeling that they were having difficulty seeing him.
Jaime's hand rested on his shoulder and he wrenched himself away yelling, "Stop it! Both of you!" The two teens recoiled in shock at his sudden outburst. "You're already forgetting me! I know you are!" He wrung the staff in his hands and took in a shaky breath. "I keep denying the fact that you're getting older and that one day you won't be able to see me at all."
"Jack-" Pippa said in a trembling voice, attempting to appeal to the Guardian.
"We won't ever forget you," Jaime stated strongly as he reached out to Jack.
Commanding the winds around him, Jack took to the air and dispiritedly shouted, "Yes, you will!" then flew off for fear that he would damage their friendship more than he already had.
Jaime brought his outstretched hand back to him and rubbed it, holding back the sobs that threatened to come out so he wouldn't cry in front of Pippa. "He-he doesn't believe in us," Pippa echoed in a hollow voice. Pulling her in to him, Jaime embraced Pippa who silently cried into his forest green parka while the increasing snow fell and swirled around them erratically.
"He's wrong," murmured Jaime. "We won't forget him." He wished he could believe his own words, but self doubt crept up in his mind and made him shudder. Jaime didn't want to lose Jack, but he knew that he needed to grow up, too.
Jack sat in a tree near the ice covered lake he had fallen in a little over three hundred years ago. His hood was pulled over his head and his face rested against his uprisen knee. The staff lay across his lap and occasionally he would tap it against a branch of the tree, making the most beautiful frost designs in an attempt to cheer himself up. He sighed when this failed to work for the fifth time and laid back against the trunk of the tree, gazing up at the moon.
"What am I going to do?" he whispered, hoping for a response. None came though and he rolled his eyes. "Still not talking to me, huh?" The moon had in fact not spoken to him since shortly after his Guardian ceremony ten years ago. North had told him that the moon, affectionately referred to as Manny by North, only spoke in times of great urgency to those he felt could turn the tide or when they had done a great service worth acknowledging. It was a high honor to be spoken to by him and it did not happen very often.
The snow fell fast and heavily around him, responding to Jack's mood. He didn't want to give Burgess a blizzard tonight, but if he didn't get his sadness and anger under control soon the townsfolk would surely wake up to several feet of fresh sparkling snow. He ruminated more on his fear that Jaime and all the other kids...except they weren't kids anymore. Jack grimaced and felt his insides become colder than ever before as his thoughts turned to what life would be like for him once they did move on and stopped believing in him. He knew that the Claude and Caleb, the twin African American teen boys, were nearly there. The two had to be reminded by Jaime and Pippa that he was standing right in front of them while they were walking out on the field after school not two days ago. He wondered to himself that if they hadn't been reminded, would they have walked right through him? A shudder past through him at the idea for he did not much want to have that again, at least not with his friends.
The gang had tried to get other children to believe in him, but not many had. Even if they did, it wasn't a strong enough belief for it always quickly faded at the mention of something else they considered more interesting and fascinating, such as the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus. Envy of his fellow Guardians came forefront in his mind and he recalled his encounter with Pitch back in his lair so long ago. "You're not one of them and they will never accept you," Pitch's voice echoed in the back of his mind. He felt himself getting more and more frustrated, wishing that he was as believed in as the other Guardians and upset that becoming a Guardian had seemingly solved nothing. The wind picked up and was now howling and whistling through the trees, the snow forming white sleet everywhere so thick that it was impossible to see anything.
An embittered shout rang through the trees and Jack shot up into the air, determined to show everyone that Jack Frost was one Guardian not to be forgotten. He was about to make the storm truly one to remember in its strength and power when a faint, familiar voice reached his ears.
"Jack!" He squinted his eyes in the direction of where the voice had come from and saw a brief flash of vibrant color. Gasping in horror at what he almost did, he called off the howling winds and hung his head in shame.
"Over here," he called out dejectedly. The fluttering of delicate wings grew stronger as Tooth flew out to him. She cradled his face in her hand and looked over at him with her luminous purple eyes, giving him a comforting smile.
"Bad day?" she said in her bright voice.
"You could say that," Jack responded, reaching up and giving her hand a gentle squeeze.
"Thought you could use a friend right about now, especially since you threw my fairies off course tonight!"
"Oops," he cheekily quipped, smirking a little. Tooth gave him a mock scowl and then led him down to the frozen lake, sitting him down at the edge and joining him in the snow. She fluffed her brilliantly colorful feathers out to get the snow off and brought her knees up to her chest.
"What happened?" she inquired, giving him a look of deep concern. Jack hesitated for a moment, before opening up to Tooth and recounting the events that had transpired that evening. He even told her about his fear that the children would all one day forget him and move on and that no one else would believe in him, leaving out his jealousy of the Guardians and the strength of those that believed in them. Tooth listened intently and wordlessly until he was finished.
Silence hung in the air for several moments after Jack ended, then Tooth quietly said, "I don't know what to tell you, Jack. Jaime and the others are all great kids, but the one bad thing about children is that they eventually do grow up and forget us. There will always be the memories that I have stored at the palace, but many adults question their memories of us and take them for dreams that they once had. For North, Bunny, Sandy, and I, it hurts a little, but there are always more kids that start believing in us as soon as one loses their belief."
"I know! It's just-"
"It's just that Jaime and them are the only ones who have ever believed in you," Tooth finished for him with a sad smile. Jack frowned and tapped his staff against the ice, making more frost designs in order to keep himself calm. Sighing, Tooth embraced Jack tightly and ran her hand gently through his ruffled white hair. "You'll always have us," she softly said before letting him go. "And we'll help you figure this out."
It made Jack feel a little better knowing that the Guardians were there to support him, however the unsettling feeling he had regarding his jealousy of them still remained heavy in his mind. He didn't want to let Tooth think that she hadn't been of help though, so he pretended to be okay now and was about to wave her off for the rest of the night when she clapped her hand to her mouth and pointed upwards.
Jack's eyes widened once he caught sight of the dancing Northern lights, the call sign for the Guardians to come to headquarters at once. "What's happened?" Jack wondered aloud.
"I don't know, but it must be something important. We have to go. Now!" Without a second thought Tooth took to the sky with her wings fluttering at an impressive speed. Jack was about to take off behind her when he felt the ground give way beneath him and found himself falling beneath the earth.
"Whoa!" he cried out before landing with a thump and proceeding to slide with increasing acceleration. "What the-?"
"Figured I'd give you a lift!" a thickly Australian accented voice yelled from up ahead. "Can't have you causing any surprise snowstorms on your way up north!"
Laughing and feeling back to himself, Jack joyfully shouted, "Bunny! You know I'm above that!"
"Yea yea, now keep up!" The two continued down the tunnels rapidly until the ground sloped upwards and they were launched out and into the freezing cold snow of the North Pole. "C-c-crikey, I h-h-hate this bl-blasted p-place!" Bunny stammered with chattering teeth, shivering from the freezing cold. Amused, Jack laughed and took to the sky, using the wind to fly to North's workshop. " 'Ey! I gave you a lift! Don't you leave me here!"
Turning around with a devilish grin, Jack pretended to ponder Bunny's threat before yelling back "Last one there's an Easter kangaroo!"
"Why you-" Bunny started, but Jack was gone before he could even come up with a clever retort. Resolving that he would have to get there through the snow as usual, Bunny gave himself once last shake and proceeded to bound up to the workshop, worried about what news awaited him and his fellow Guardians there.