OH MY GOSH YOU GUYS ARE AMAZING.

Seriously. Chapter one was less than 600 words and yet you guys…. Mind. Blown. Thanks so much to all you fantabulicious people who reviewed, favorited and followed, you guys really mean the world.

Chapter 2

Bring your Guardians to Work Day

"No."

"Why not? Everyone else was okay with it!"

"Frostbite, I appreciate the gesture, but I got enough work ta do in my Warren without havin' ta babysit ya an' th' others. No." Bunny folded his furry arms over his chest and gave the young spirit to be what he hoped to be a nonthreatening yet stern look.

"I think it's a good idea, Bunny," Tooth said.

Jack's grin widened as he nodded to the fairy. "See? Tooth agrees with me. You guys need to lighten up every once and a while, and this way we'll even be working! I call it," pause for dramatic effect, "Bring Your Guardians to Work Day!"

"I see no harm in Jack's idea," North said, stroking his beard. "Even has catchy name."

Bunny turned his frustrations on the Cossack. "Oh come o- you're not really going ta go along with this?"

Jack smirked. "Come on, Bunny, afraid of a little bonding time?"

Bunny inhaled deeply through his nose. Jack was just trying to get a rise out of him, make it into a competition to get the Pooka to go along with it. Well it wouldn't work, oh no, you couldn't pull the wool over these eyes.

"It's not a bad idea, but we don' have tha' much time ta waste, and if somethin' happens it'll set us even further back tryin' ta fix it. So no." Bunny's tone was final and he turned his back on the boy, feeling a small bit of satisfaction at having seen through the boy's plan. It was settled. They just couldn't risk it after that year's disastrous Easter.

A faint sound like a sigh caught Bunny's attention and he looked back in surprise. The younger spirit was staring at the ground, small shoulders slumped in disappointment.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I just wanted to spend some time with you guys, but if you're busy, I guess that's okay." Wide blue eyes peeked up at them, partially obscured by his tousled snowy hair, innocent and sad as a wounded puppy.

That... okay, that just wasn't fair. Pulling the little kid puppy face on people whose purpose was to make children happy...

Jack shifted his gaze to the floor again. "I guess I'll get out of your way and make it snow somewhere then, since you guys are busy. I'll see you around." Slowly he turned to go.

Tooth gave Bunny a furious look and a small part of him resisted. The kid was obviously playing them, right? But what if he wasn't? Maybe he really did just want them to have fun together? Bunny gave a loud, frustrated sigh.

"Get over here, ya dill."

Jack paused and peeked back at the rabbit over his shoulder, hope showing on his face.

Bunnymund closed his eyes and pinched his forehead in exasperation. Why, Aster, why, why…. "Just this once, ya hear?"

A brilliant grin spread across the boy's face and Bunny sighed again. This was going to be a long day.

Moments later they were all piled into the sleigh and once again subjected to the torture of North's reckless driving. Jack glanced back from his place next to the pilot to see Bunny adding more terrified claw marks to his collection in the wood of the sleigh. He laughed, then turned back to the front.

"Hey, North?"

The Cossack grunted.

"Do you remember when we were at the Tooth Palace and you let me steer the sleigh?"

North laughed. "I did what? You are dreaming, my friend."

"When we were fighting the nightmares that stole the tooth fairies, you told me to take the reins and then jumped out of the sleigh."

North stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Sometimes... get too excited in battle. Do rash things, da?"

Jack frowned. "So you weren't just displaying irrational trust in me by placing your primary mode of transportation into the hands of a teenager?"

North backpedaled. "Well, that may have been part of it, always good to trust people..."

Jack narrowed his eyes, his dark eyebrows rising into his hair. "You weren't thinking about that at all were you."

"Not really, no."

Jack couldn't help but smile at that. "Good to know I have your trust, North." He leaned over the edge of the sleigh to look down at the streets below. "Alright, we're here!"

"Here" proved to be a city somewhere in eastern Europe. North parked the sleigh in an alley and they each hopped out (more of a collapsing onto the ground on Bunny's part) and Jack stood in front of them, one hand on his staff, the other held behind his back in a very militaristic manner.

"Alright," he said. "Our continuing mission is to seek out new believers, to spread snowballs and funtimes, to boldly go where no Guardian has gone before!" He paced back and forth, gesturing with his staff at the ground as if pointing things out on a map. "I will be supplying the snowballs, obviously, your job is to spread joy and fun at all costs. Be resourceful, use your invisibility to your own advantage! Blatantly disobey traffic laws if necessary!" He pounded a fist into his open palm. "Now! Are we ready to bring joy to children?"

Tooth and Bunny looked somewhat horrified at this, while North and Sandy were practically cheering.

"Then lets do this!"

"I don't like this," Bunny complained for the billionth time.

Tooth, who had finally gotten sick of his griping, turned and said, "Yeah, well I said it wasn't a good idea for you and Jack to go play capture the flag paintball, but nobody listens to me. And you had no problem leaving your Warren then if it meant you could humiliate Jack."

Bunny huffed as buried-and colorful- memories came to mind. "That... that was different."

Tooth's indigo tail feathers twitched. "It was a matter of manly pride, you mean. Which apparently is more important than bringing joy to children...?"

Bunny glowered.

"Relax, old friend," North said, "Warren will be fine for few hours. I feel it-"

"I don't need yer overactive stomach ta tell me what ta do, thanks." Bunny said, knowing they were right., as usual "Let's just get this ova' with." He bounded forward toward a park where children were admiring the snowflakes that had begun to fall.

Watching him go, Tooth couldn't help but smile. "He'll have fun," she said.

North shot her a look. "We'll certainly hear about it if he doesn't."

Bunny couldn't help but feel that he had done something wrong and this was Jack's revenge. But honestly, what was he supposed to do? Jump out of the bushes and say, "Hey, kids, wanna have a snowball fight?"

There was a crashing sound and Bunny turned to see familiar round form clad in red burst into the clearing. "Hey, kids, wanna have a snowball fight?" Bunny's furry palm made contact with his forehead. He groaned. Well, at least he didn't have to decide what to do anymore. His first snowball took North's furry hat off his head.

North couldn't help it. Bunny was just sitting there frowning (like always) and Easter would come before he was likely to move. So North had given him a... nudge in the right direction. And Bunny had replied with a snowball to the face. Well, some things never change.

Tooth tried. She really did. But she just couldn't bring herself to throw any sort of object at a child, especially when they could easily fall and knock out one of their precious teeth.

She chewed her lip. "This is turning out to be harder than I thought. What do you think we should do, Sandy? ...Sandy?"

She flitted around for a few seconds before she finally saw the little golden man laying peacefully in the snow beneath her, moving his arms and legs to create a snow angel (which wasn't working very well because his limbs were so short compared to his round body).

Tooth smiled. "Of course, you're absolutely right, Sandy." They could spread fun in the snow without encouraging violence. She liked to save that for a certain tall, dark, and creepy individual.

"Now let's find ourselves some kids, shall we?"

Tooth and Sandy wrangled up some believers (somewhat literally, with Sandy's Dreamsand whips) and were helping the kids to make the tallest snowman ever, something considerably easier when you had someone who could fly.

While a crane of Dreamsand lifted the next white boulder to sit on top of the last, the children packed handfuls of sticky snow to strengthen as much of the base as they could reach. As Tooth directed a group of mini fairies, a sudden thought occurred to her. She glanced over at her golden companion.

"Sandy, do you know where Jack is? I haven't seen him since we got here."

The little man thought for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders. A golden snowflake formed above his head, followed by a spyglass pointed at silhouettes of the four other Guardians.

"He's watching us... but you don't know where he is?"

Sandy nodded. So Jack was "overseeing the funtimes", eh? Tooth supposed that made sense, but it didn't seem like Jack to merely supervise the mayhem rather than participate in it. She frowned.

Before she could think on it more, however, a group of mini-fairies appeared carrying a red scarf between them and her supervising instinct kicked in again.

"It's perfect! Sandy, how's the head coming? Fully attached?"

The little golden man gave a double thumbs up.

"Excellent." She turned to the kids. "Alright, who wants to help put on the scarf?"

Eagerly, the kids crowded around the base, squabbling like siblings about to put the start on top of the Christmas tree. Sandman smiled and with a few waves of his hands, a cloud of glowing golden sand formed beneath the children and lifted them to the level of the snowman's head. Tooth watched as the scarf was draped haphazardly around the sculpture, which was too big for the fabric by far. She sighed.

"When was the last time we did anything like this? Actually with the kids?" No one seemed to hear her, but she didn't mind. She let the question hang in the air, mingling with the laughter of the children before flitting down to help continue the construction.

Tooth was right, Jack indeed was busy. Between supervising the Guardians to make sure none of them hurt themselves (they were kind of new to this whole "funtimes" thing) and working on his own project, he seemed to be in constant motion. Finally, though, it seemed his task was almost complete. And honestly, he thought as he surveyed his handiwork, it was pretty impressive. Just a few touch-ups here, a little more frost there and…

Perfect. It was time to conduct phase two.

"Just look at that," Tooth said to the little girl whose fingers were curled tightly around her own. "Have you ever seen a more gentlemanly snowman?"

The girl's hat slipped down over her eyes and she pushed it up to gaze in wonder at the towering creation. "No, Miss Tooth Fairy!" she chirped. "I've never seen one quite so tall, either!"

Tooth smiled. She loved being around children,and she couldn't believe she had allowed herself to get so caught up in her work that she hadn't spent time with them. She was broken out of her thoughts by a startled cry behind her.

"Oooooh caaaarrrrots!"

Tooth turned in surprise at the familiar voice to see a parade of children speeding down the iced-over sidewalk, a panicked Bunny and ever-jolly North sliding uncontrollably after them.

"North?! Bunny- wait!" Tooth called in astonishment. Not that the two had any control over where they were going, thanks to the winter teen flying beside them. "Jack, what-"

"C'mon, Tooth, you're being left behind!" The children she and Sandy had been playing with were quickly swept along to join the others, whooping with glee as they sped along the ice. The little girl let go of Tooth's hand to join her friends and the fairy flew after them.

The line of kids traveled down the street as if on a giant slip-n'-slide, carefully steered just out of danger's reach by their watchful Guardian of Fun. The trail took a turn and they came to a stop in front of a forest. The kids got to their feet a little unsteadily and jabbered to one another.

"That was SO cool! Did you see me? I almost crashed into a bike!"

"It's Jack Frost! He made the ice!"

"I see him! Wow!"

"See who?"

"Look, he's right there!"

Jack landed in the snow in front of them, his joyful smile growing as more and more of the children gazed at him with giddy smiles. "Hey, kiddos! How do you like the snow?"

"It's great, mister!" one girl said, her face flushed with the cold.

Jack knelt in front of her. "Alright!" he said. "Tell you what, I'll keep it coming if you promise to have some serious fun on your snow day. Sound good?"

The girl grinned and bobbed her head in confirmation. Jack got to his feet as a motion-sick rabbit and a large Russian man tumbled into the clearing with the last of the kids.

"North, Bunny! Nice of you to come!" Jack turned back to the kids in front of him. "Now, I've got something for you guys, follow me!"

They didn't have to go far. Just inside the trees, the group came to a stunned halt in a snow-covered clearing. There was a collective gasp of delight as Jack's surprise came into view.

The winter spirit stood proudly in front of a three-story ice castle with spiraling towers that sparkled in the sunlight just below the trees. Ice parapets, forts, and piles of snowballs dotted the courtyard.

"Jack," Tooth breathed, "It's beautiful!"

The snowy-haired boy gave her a bashful smile, cheeks flushing a little. "Thanks, Tooth. It's not my best, but I was kind of in a hurry." His grin turned mischievous. "Everybody against the Easter Kangaroo!"

"Aw, come on," Bunny said, but was cut off as an assault of snowballs forced him to dive behind one of the ice walls.

Tooth glanced down at one of the stacks of snowy ammunition, a small smile playing at the corner of her mouth. She would never throw a snowball at a child. But there was nothing stopping her from throwing one at a Guardian.

It didn't take long before the children had taken sides and they had a full scale battle on their hands. None of them noticed when a certain white-haired teen slipped in to create ice parapets and extra ammo for both sides.

North loaded up an abandoned sled with snowballs and used it to catapult the projectiles at the opposite side, giving a mighty battle cry as the missiles impacted on the enemy wall and its inhabitants: "Christmas is better than Easter!"

A pair of blue-gray ears stiffened in indignation and Bunny glared over the snowy wall. "A'right North, you brought this on ya'self!" In the heat of battle, Bunny didn't even notice that his feet had gone numb from the cold. The ancient holiday rivalry had been rekindled and Bunny would not stand by and let himself be insulted in the presence of believers. He ducked behind the wall and turned to his small army, who looked up at him eagerly.

"A'kay, mates, you ready for this?" Small heads nodded enough to nearly take them off the kids' shoulders. Bunny smiled proudly and straightened. "CHARGE!"

In that moment, Bunny knew what it was like to command a small army of devoted children. He rather liked it.

By the time it started to get dark, both Guardians and kids were completely exhausted. Reluctantly, the children were returned to their homes, and the Guardians clambered into North's sleigh toward a dinner at the Pole before going their separate ways. (Bunny had resisted, buth the Guardians hadn't exactly listened to his other protests that day and this one was no different. Once they were in the air, Jack couldn't resist sending a smug look back at Bunnymund.

"Now, was that so bad, Kangaroo?"

Bunny muttered something about frozen feet and a "bloody galah".

Tooth glanced over at North with a smile. "He had fun."