"The end is only the beginning of the best friendships."
Frosted Dust
Act II
The Beginning of the End
Burgess, late October, after the defeat of Pitch Black
"Trust me, guys, you are gonna love this game! Especially you, Tooth!" Jack Frost laughed, as they emerged from a Bunny-tunnel behind the bushes at the Burgess Youth Park.
"Jack, we have work to do," North complained.
"Odd, how this town got such a nice ice rink installed?" Bunnymund observed, giving his former nemesis a nudge in the ribs, "Don't recall seein' it before, Mate?"
"It was a long, dull summer in the southern hemisphere, for their winter," Jack replied, "And for my first Believers, it was the least I could do!" He held out his arms proudly, the ice on the new hockey rink shimmering in the evening light.
"Hate to admit it, Mate, but no one's gonna complain if you wanna come an' cool off the Outback!" Bunnymund offered, "It's been brutal lately!"
"You built an ice rink for the kids?" Tooth asked.
Jack laughed. "Yeah, the Town Council is still wondering where their baseball field went!"
"Jack, I think you spend too much time with this boy," North reminded him, "Is not role of Guardian to play favorite!"
"HOCKEY!" Tooth then screamed, as they rounded a corner. Of course, no adult noticed them, but a few children did give them odd looks, despite their disguises. "I love this sport!" Tooth went on, "Even though it costs me a lot of money!"
A dollar sign popped up over the Sandman's head.
"Relax! It'll be fun!" Jack reminded them, "It's not that close to Christmas, Easter is months away, Baby Tooth and her gang and the Mice can handle the job for one night, and well...some kids can just stay up a bit late tonight?" Jack clapped Sandy on the shoulder, and he nodded back.
"And what about mild winter all over rest of world?" North pressed the issue again, "Every day in Burgess, here, cannot be snow day! And certainly not in July!" He muttered a few Russian curses under his breath.
"So I got a little excited?" Jack shrugged. They all glared at him. "OK, OK! Jamie got a little excited! But Miss Summer fixed it. She didn't mind!"
"Not what she told me," Bunnymund put in, as they found seats. A little girl in a yellow jersey nudged him.
"I don't like coconut candies, you know," she whispered and giggled, tugging at Bunnymund's stocking cap that hid his ears.
"She's a fan of the other team, give her rocks," Jack whispered in Bunnymund's other ear. Bunnymund glared at him.
"Carried away? Wait, you let Jamie play with the Staff?" Tooth gasped.
"I wonder why his name pop up on Naughty List!" North snarled, holding up his right arm.
"Put that away!" Jack hissed, "Before someone sees it! It was an accident! He thought he'd polish it for me, and well? Next thing I knew..." Jack shrugged.
"You let Jamie polish your Staff?" Bunnymund gaped at him.
"Jack?" North grumbled.
"You should let 'em detail the sleigh! When was the last time you cleaned that thing, anyway?" Jack smiled.
Just then, the announcer's voice came over the PA system, introducing the teams. As their names were called out, a child would skate out across the ice and stop in the center of the rink. The team in blue, with jerseys emblazoned with a large silver snowflake, came out first.
"The Guardians?" North wondered, "I like name!"
"You know, Jack, Manny didn't choose you to coach a little league hockey team!" Bunnymund reminded him, "It's October, and the Great Pumpkin won't be pleased."
A pumpkin popped up over Sandy's head in glittering sand.
"He hates it when you call him that," Tooth put in, "Oh, look! They're already missing some front teeth!" She squealed.
"Not to mention how American Turkey is feeling," North laughed.
"Eh, no one cares about the Turkey," Jack shrugged.
Once the teams were introduced, six players on each team took their positions.
"Is that little Monty out there?" Bunnymund wondered, "And I thought rabbits were nervous!"
"Caleb and Claude dragged him into it," Jack said, as the puck was dropped and chaos promptly broke out on the ice. More than once, North had to grab a cheering Jack by the hood and put him back in his seat. Still, the Guardians could see little whirls and whorls of frost chasing across the ice in the wake of the skates of the children in blue jerseys.
"Game is about how good children play – not how good Jack Frost cheat!" North gave him a shake.
All around the rink, blue and yellow shirts chased one another. There were collisions, and a few scuffles for the referees to break up. There were cheers as Guardian #5 shot a goal.
"YES! JAMIE!" Jack shouted, as Jamie pumped his arm in the air, waving his stick in celebration. "Taught him everything he knows!" Jack crowed in delight, just as the wind picked up a bit. Flakes began to fall, then swirled up into a what looked like a tiny, thin tornado of snow. It danced across the ice, encircled Jamie, then shot up into the sky and vanished.
Everyone slapped Jack on the biceps or shoulders and glared at him.
"Talk about a bloody show pony?" Bunnymund grumbled.
"HEY! That wasn't me!" Jack protested, pointing at his Staff, which was sitting on the floor under the seat.
A question mark popped up over Sandy's head.
"North's right, Jack, that was Magic. Are they cheating?" Tooth looked worried, "You think it might have been Miss Autumn? Or Wendy, Wendy, Wendy, or Wanda?"
"Four Winds, who can know? All so flighty!" North shrugged, as the game resumed.
Back and forth the skaters raced, but no goals got past Cupcake, the Guardians goalie. A few rounds later, and an unlucky high-sticks call sent Monty to the ice, curled up and writhing in pain as he collided with a boy in yellow. Every male in the crowd groaned sympathetically.
"Sta-ruth!" Bunnymund exclaimed, "The little Wally does have knackers after all! An' here I thought he were already a eunuch boy!"
"Be nice," Tooth grunted, "Ladies present?"
"He seem much better, not so peba, now that Pitch in hiding?" North wondered, as Monty was carried off and replaced by a substitute, "First strings, no?" He wondered.
"The little guy's come a long way," Jack agreed, "He just needed drawn out, is all." He blinked. "What's a peba?"
"Wimp," Bunnymund added.
As the players got ready to resume, the boy in yellow held up his hand. He made a face, then spat out a tooth.
"Left cuspid! I love it!" Tooth squealed again.
"Least he didn't spit out a gool-..." Bunnymund began, but Tooth stepped on his foot.
"Leave him a rock," Jack suggested to Tooth, which got him another arm slap.
Again, the chaos resumed. At that age, many of the boys seemed more interested in hitting each other than they were the puck. Then Jamie got the puck again, and as he saw it coming, did a leaping turn and shot it down the rink for another goal.
"Was that double salchow?" North wondered.
A figure skater image appeared over Sandy's head, and he smirked at Jack, who shrugged in all innocence.
By the end of the game, the Guardians had won 10-0. It was opening day of the season, and there was a party in the concessions area to celebrate.
"I think we should go," Bunnymund suggested, "Not all of us blend in so well!" He tapped his foot on the ground, and a hole opened, "Give Jamie and the crew me best?" He smiled, as down he went. The others also took their leave, not wanting to risk further exposure to anyone who might be a Believer.
Jack was just making his way over to Jamie and his friends when he bumped into a woman in a nurse's uniform.
"Pestilence?" Jack gasped, as he didn't pass through her, raising his Staff, "What are you doing here?"
"Relax, Jackie!" She assured him, "It's tradition to pass out a few runny noses and sniffles on opening day. That's all, I promise!" She backed up a bit. "I know, I knooooow, everyone's still mad at me for the Black Plague! And call me 'Polly', won't you?"
"Number five is off limits, Polly," Jack nodded.
Polly looked around. Her brows knitted, and she raised an eyebrow. "Jamie Bennett?" She pulled a small notebook from her bag. "Nope, nothing. Not even scheduled for chicken pox. Don't even see his name, really? Healthy boy! I just hate those!" she laughed.
"Just make sure it stays that way, thank you!" Jack smiled, as Polly tapped Claude's nose. He sneezed once and wiped his nose on his sleeve.
"Hi, Jack!" Jamie said in a small voice, so as not to draw attention, as Jack sat down with them. "Who's your lady friend?"
"Wait, you can see her?" Jack wondered, as Polly paused, just about to poke some other boy in yellow on the nose.
"He can see me?" Polly gasped, vanishing in surprise, leaving a puff of smoke that made many of the children sneeze.
"Jamie's been seeing all kinds of...characters?" Pippa nodded, as the snow picked up a bit.
"That was Polly Pestilence, she's just passing out some sniffles," Jack assured them.
"Hope that's all," Monty fretted, still looking a bit green around the gills and walking oddly.
"Told you to wear a cup!" Caleb reminded him, offering Jack hot chocolate.
"Didn't know he even had a pair!" Claude laughed.
"Uh, lady present?" Pippa reminded them.
"Where?" Monty joked, as Cupcake punched his arm.
"OWWW!"
"No! No cocoa!" Jack pulled back, "That stuff'll kill ya! What's a guy gotta do to get ice cream around here?" He smiled. "So, I see no one on the... Nuggets? Who named that team?"
"Let's not talk about nuggets," Monty groaned.
They all had a laugh about that, and Jack was surprised to find that quite a few children in Burgess could see him. Not only that, they were delighted to see him. It had been a long summer, after all. He promised them a good night for Halloween, and to arrange a White Christmas with 'Santa'. They chatted and ate junk food from the concession stand. By the time the parents were ready to collect their children, the snow was really coming down.
"Strange," Jack wondered, studying his Staff, "That's not me. Must be Mother Nature Herself? Then again, could be Autumn hanging out with Wendy. She fills in for me sometimes."
"We were all hoping for snow!" Cupcake smiled, her past sour demeanor now replaced (thanks in part to Jack) with a much better one.
"Yeah, we missed you all summer!" Claude added.
"Who you talkin' to, boys? You see Cupcake every day?" The Twins' mother asked, as she came to collect them.
"Jack Frost!" They both smiled at her, showing off a few missing teeth.
"Funny! C'mon, I hate driving in this stuff," she complained.
As the children all said their goodbyes, Jamie lingered a bit with Jack while their mother took Sophie to the ladies' room. Jack was looking around, wondering at the snow that he hadn't created, when a snowball hit him on the back of the head!
"Hey, wait! This is powdery? You know, the skiing stuff?" Jack wondered, staring in shock at a smiling Jamie, who was just cutting his two front adult teeth. He was just the right age for most of them to have already fallen out, or get lost on the hockey rink.
"I know!" Jamie crowed in delight, "Isn't it great?" He held up his hand.
A snowball formed from the glittering mini-tornado of snow that seemed to spin up out of his bare palm.
"OK, Toothless?" Jack gasped, then smirked at the nickname, "Did you do...?" He then spun up a small snow tornado, just like the one that had crossed the rink when Jamie had scored.
Jamie nodded proudly. "I think it was all that coaching you did when the rink first opened! I dunno, it just happened!"
"This is not normal!" Jack wondered, "And it's only been a few weeks of practice? I mean, I was gone all summer long, after Easter? Remember? We've not been training that long?"
"Yeah, three hundred years, and you still don't know what the post office is?" Jamie gave him a sad face, "We missed you, Jack!"
"I think you'll be seeing a lot of me this winter, Kiddo," Jack tussled the boy's hair, which frosted over, "I think I might be rubbing off on you?" He thought about it. He handed Jamie the Staff. It frosted and crackled as Jamie handed it back. Jack studied it, and the boy.
"Like that's a bad thing?" Jamie laughed, as his mother came to collect him. The boy turned and waved goodbye one more time, as Sophie chattered, "Jack Frost! Jack Frost!" all the way to the car.
"And just remember," Jack called after them, "This is NOT a hockey stick!" He held up his Staff, "But it'd make a darn good one?" He told himself.
Frost Manor, Present Day
"So that was the first clue?" young New Year asked, as snow began to gently fall from the ceiling.
Jack Frost nodded, bowing his head again and covering his face with his hands.
"When I think back, the signs were all there, Newbie," Jack said, his voice quavering, "That night he first believed, and we took him, to get him away from Pitch, I noticed things. Well, I did, but I didn't have time to really think about it, you know? There was a battle going on, after all, and Pitch wanted to hurt him."
"Go on?" Newbie wondered.
Jack coughed. "It's not easy," he managed, "Y-you looking like..."
"I know, and I'm sorry, but I age about ten human years per month," Newbie nodded, "Mom – Mother Nature, you know – wanted me to come. Her and The Winds are getting kinda ticked off, picking up your slack, Jack. They're seriously thinking about calling in The Snowman. I mean, I wanted to come, though? You're Jack-flippin'-Frost, after all! How cool is that?" New Year joked, but Jack didn't even smile.
"Sorry to disappoint," Jack sighed, waving his arms about, "Welcome to Frost Manor! Or what's left of it."
"This was his room?" Newbie wondered, looking around. In addition to some sports trophies and the scattered clothing, there were also unopened Christmas gifts and Easter baskets, their uneaten contents unable to rot in the cold.
Jack only nodded as the snow fell gently from the ceiling. "The hour he first believed," Jack then sighed, as if sarcastically referencing the religious hymn, "I made it snow in his room, at his house. He was about to stop believing, Newbie, and if he had, none of us would be here now. Not that there's any point to being here, though?"
"But you saved his belief!" Newbie pointed out, "Dad, I mean – Father Time - told me all about it! You animated a snow-rabbit for him, to make him believe in Bunnymund again? How cool was that?" New Year smiled, perhaps hoping that Jack would demonstrate.
Jack only sighed. "I can't do it anymore, sorry. This is all I can manage," Jack gestured at the ceiling, "And what's outside. Tell Mom I'm sorry about the forest. I just... just..." He sniffled and looked away. "They warned me. They warned me, Newbie, and I ignored them! Happy-go-lucky Jack Frost! That's me! Have fun, because it's my Center, you know! So I had fun! I had fun with the kids! Wasn't that what I was supposed to do?"
"You put too much into one kid?"
"Yeah," Jack sighed again.
"It's all about the kids, yes?" New Year wondered. "You said there were signs that something was wrong? Something odd about...him?" He decided to not speak the boy's name.
Jack nodded again, staring out the window at the dead tree limbs. The wind made a shutter bang against the frozen pane, but he ignored it.
"That night, with Pitch and his Nightmares chasing us, I'd...we'd taken Ja-...him, to protect him. He only had his pyjamas on, and he was barefoot," Jack glanced down at his own bare feet. He suddenly remembered the last time he'd worn shoes himself.
Burgess, formerly Hawthorne, just over 300 years prior
"Wait for me!" Jack called to his little sister, pulling off his shoes and checking the blades of his ice skates.
"You're so slow, Jack!" She laughed, carefully keeping her balance on her own unsteady skates, just near the bank. Jack shivered, but he wanted to check the ice. Near the center, he imagined, it would be thinner where the water was deeper. And the pond was very deep, he knew. Even in summer, the depths were cool and could make you cramp up in a second, if you sank too deeply.
"Not so far, not yet!" Jack called, venturing after her, out on the ice, and using his staff to steady himself. "Wow! This is cold!" He gasped, his bare feet going numb almost at once, as she laughed at him and his skates that were tied together and hanging around his neck. He imagined it must be an amusing sight, a gangling boy like himself, trying to walk barefoot on the ice. He laughed too.
Then the ice cracked.
On the bank, his shoes sat, forgotten.
Burgess, First Winter after the Battle
"Jamie, whatever you do, DO NOT do that in front of anyone else!" Jack Frost warned the boy, who was standing there with a conjured snowball in his bare hand.
"But Jack, how can I be doing it?" Jamie wondered, "And are you really buying a house here?" The boy's mind then changed tracks, and the snowball vanished.
"Not so much buying, as squatting," Jack smiled. He couldn't help but smile when he thought of having his own hideout – something that he'd once derided the others for. "With a little help from Father Time, and some creative work by the Forest Spirits, we'll have that old manor house up the hill all fixed up, but hidden from Non-Believers!" Jack explained, as he was examining Jamie's hand – and finding nothing amiss but a hangnail.
"The one by the pond?" Jamie gasped, "You're going to live there?"
Jack smiled again, nodding. He hadn't told Jamie the story – the story of how surprised he'd been to find a deserted old ruin of a house on the very spot where his own childhood home had once stood. No, Jack thought, he'd never tell Jamie the full, grisly story. Why ruin it for the children? After all, the ice on that pond would certainly never crack again. Ever.
No child would ever drown in that pond again.
"That house, yes, and you get to pick your own room," Jack added happily, "Just in case you might want to...camp out? You could tell your mom that? You know, with as much as I'm gone, I'll need someone to look after the place?" He smiled.
Jamie almost had a seizure over the news, as Jack tried to calm him down, explaining how Magical Guardian Hideouts were hidden, and how they worked.
"So, Father Time makes the house new again, with magic?" Jamie gasped, "And Believers can see it?"
Jack nodded. "Actually, he messes with physics, or something. And you'll have someplace to practice hockey all year long!"
And practice they did. During that first season, the Burgess Pee Wee League Guardians took first place – undefeated. What was more unusual was that with the exception of the Twins, all of them were rookies. Jack Frost, of course, never missed a game or a practice. The other Guardians came when they could, and Tooth (of course) was ecstatic with all the knocked-out teeth. The people of Burgess were perplexed at the seemingly imaginary coach, to whom the children seemed to be listening when their real coach wasn't there.
Winters didn't last all year, though. There was football (soccer) and baseball in the summertime, though, and Jack always returned home whenever he could manage. True to his word, the lake never thawed. Even in July, many of the children of Burgess (those who believed) could be found skating there. The children christened the hidden old house Frost Manor, and never missed a chance to hang out.
But just like winter, childhood didn't last. Some children came and went, never finding their way back to the Manor as they grew older and stopped believing. Still, the core members of the Guardians hockey team kept the faith.
It was during their their second hockey season, after a mild autumn that had seemed to want to linger and not give way to Jack Frost, that Jack noticed that something was definitely wrong with his little friend. Conjuring snowballs, he could overlook. Just about all the kids could do that, when he was around.
Jamie, though, was different.
Jack had just returned from a stint in South America and given a proper chill to the late autumn air when he stopped by the Manor to check on things. Of course he knew that the children and the magic would maintain the house, but it was still good to go home; even for an Immortal. And of course, the children were out on the ever-frozen pond when he arrived.
"Jamie, you'll get pneumonia!" Pippa was chiding him.
"Jack's been doing it for three hundred years! It's fun!" Jamie protested, and it took Jack a moment to register just what he was seeing: Jamie was out on the ice, barefoot!
"Man, you crazy!" Claude put in.
"Uhm, Jack's an Immortal?" Cupcake reminded them, "You're not!"
"You'll get frostbite!" Monty worried.
"In case you forgot, we didn't get sick that night we were fighting Pitch Black last year?" Jamie reminded them, "We were out for hours in the cold, and I didn't even have slippers on!"
"He got a point?" Caleb told his brother, shrugging.
"C'mon, shoot me the puck!" Jamie insisted, just as he took off across the ice. Jack blinked. They'd had several talks about some of the strange things that had happened with Jamie over the last year: snowballs, snow tornadoes, drinks freezing in his hands, and dressing for winter. Ever since the small snow tornado at the grand opening game of the new hockey rink, Jack had kept a close eye on the boy. That, or he'd had someone else do it for him. Phil the Yeti had been more than happy to help, in making sure that Jamie hadn't had any strange outbursts – especially not in the middle of the summer.
But as the barefoot boy took off across the ice, leaving a vapor trail of frost in his wake, Jack's jaw dropped. He clutched his Staff, listening to the familiar sounds of cracks and pops of ice forming in a rapidly dropping temperature. Jamie shot the puck back at Cupcake, and an explosion of snow accompanied the flying iced puck as it tore clean through the goal net.
"SCORE!" Jamie shouted.
"STOP!" Jack shouted back, as everyone just stared at them. "What do you call that?" He demanded of the startled boy.
"Frost-puck!" Jamie smiled at him with uneven teeth.
"And how does one shoot a 'frost puck'?" Jack asked.
So Jamie showed him. "It's all in the wrist!" He waved his hockey stick, which left a small wake of steam in the air.
He handed Jack his stick, taking the Staff from him. Jack was just about to shoot the puck when he realized what he'd done. He grabbed the Staff back.
It was cold.
Even to his own touch.
"What have we said about playing with the Staff?" Jack reminded him gently, never quite able to bring himself to scold any of the children.
"'It's not a toy, it's a very dangerous weapon'," Jamie recited with a huff.
"Aren't your feet cold?" Jack asked him.
"No?" Jamie shrugged, "Are yours?" He then laughed, and for just a second, Jack could've sworn that the boy's eyes sparkled blue. He looked again. No, Jamie's eyes were brown. "C'mon, Jack!" He then exclaimed, "We've waited all summer for this! We gotta get in shape for the season!"
North Pole, Present Day
"Any word?" Bunnymund asked, as the Original Four gathered. Overhead, the colors of the auroras still danced in the sky, summoning the others.
"Young New Year is visiting him," North nodded.
"You sure tha's such a good idea, Mate? Sending what looks like a ten-years-old boy to talk to Jack? Crikey, North! A young boy is why he's such a mess!"
"We have all tried, old friend," North sighed, taking a plate of cookies from a passing Elf. "I was pleased to see you spent so much time with him?"
Bunnymund nodded, accepting a vegetable tray from Phil the Yeti. "He needed someone, bad, them first couple years," Bunnymund said, "I was glad to do it." His nose twitched harder than usual, and he looked away from North's penetrating stare. "Damn! What I wouldn't give to see an Easter wrecked like '68 again!" He smacked his hand on the table, as a stream of shimmering gold dust came down from the ceiling.
The dust coalesced into The Sandman, and a question mark appeared over his head.
"Sandy, old man! Just talkin' 'bout Jack, we were," Bunnymund greeted him. Three letter Z's flashed over Sandy's head, then a snowflake. Sandy shook his head. "I know, he's not sleeping anymore. Mum said he'd lost weight, a real mess, when she checked in on him last."
"Not nice to call Mother Nature 'Mum'," North warned him.
The room then filled with moonlight, as Tooth came fluttering in and the silent Manny joined them in Spirit. For a long while, they all sat staring at the flickering lights of the globe. All of them were looking at the near eastern edge of North America, United States, though – and the one noticeably absent light.
What had once been the Last Light.
"Even Manny has tried," North mused.
"And failed," Bunnymund muttered, as a crescent moon flashed over Sandy's head and vanished. He sighed.
"I hear even Pitch went to see him?" North asked.
"Yeah, an' it were so bad, even the Boogeyman couldn't tolerate it," Bunnymund nodded.
"It's so sad," Tooth shook her head. "I should never have..."
"You thought it would help," North patted her hand, offering hot chocolate.
"Only me or the girls are supposed to activate the boxes," Tooth shook her head, hiding her face in her hands, "I thought that if Jack had access to...if he knew what Jam-..."
"We all knew what he...the boy...felt," Bunnymund cut her off, "If you hadn't given Jack the box, he might well have blinked out of existence!"
Images of children flashed over Sandy's head.
"He's right, lots of other kids still believe," Bunnymund offered, "It wasn't just...him."
"Why we dance around name?" North demanded, holding up his right arm, "His name was JAMIE! And he was naughty, sometimes!" He then laughed, which got their attention, inappropriate as it was, "And he was Last Light! He save us ALL! Such a child, I think, this world never sees again!" North's voice boomed, as the moon moved just so, flooding the globe with light as the floor shook.
Then the circular floor tiles marked "G" separated, and a huge, clear crystal rose from the hidden compartment below the five-pointed star pattern. The moonlight struck it, and a hologram in shades of cold blue and cyan formed up: a boy in a hoodie, with his hood up. He was holding a short staff.
"Manny?" Bunnymund said, "We know! Jack's the reason we're meeting here. But he's already a Guardian, mate?"
"Yes! Is just...on sick leave?" North offered, "We get him back to work, soon!"
Tooth then gasped. Sandy's eyes were wide, unusual for him. A question mark hovered over his head. Then it changed to an exclamation point.
Phil came in with more refreshments, saw the hologram, dropped his silver platter, then fainted.
"Is that...what I think it is?" Bunnymund gasped.
"Look at the stick!" Tooth wondered.
"Da! But that is not Jack!" North exclaimed, sitting down hard on the dais of the globe and leaning back on it in shock, staring at his right forearm. "Is NOT possible!"
"Is...is Jack being fired?" Tooth wondered, "Replaced?"
"Can Guardians get even get sacked?" Bunnymund asked.
"We are about to find out," North mused.