Chapter 2: Finding the Light

Jack's POV

It's been nearly 200 years since Sandy told us that I would fall in love with the next guardian. It's been nearly 200 years and I'm still waiting for her to even show up. I'm starting to think that maybe Sandy was just wrong about this, despite the fact that the moon told him. It has just been so long…maybe we missed her.

However, I honestly believe that Crystal was the one that is of course, before she died a few weeks ago. We tried to save her, none more than me if I do say so myself. Why was she so special in my mind? Well, she was the one descendant of Jamie up until now that never believed in any of the guardians. Sure she knew some of the stories, but she always believed that they were just for children in order for them to behave in a certain manner.

I even tried the snow in the room trick that I used for Jamie years ago, but she thought that the ceiling had holes in it and just needed to be fixed as soon as possible. Yeah, I think that's why I liked her, because she was the one that I could never see or be with.

Anyways, at this moment, I was watching over Crystal's little sister Carrie. They had looked pretty similar too: brown hair, blue eyes, about 5'6, but one of Crystal's special features was the star-shaped birthmark on her right hand. It was shaped into a perfect star and I have yet to see another person with that same birthmark. Anyways, they both loved to go out and play sports in the snow. Crystal was fantastic at skiing, she was almost as fast as I was when I flew with the wind.

Even though I was supposedly still looking for the "love of my life for the rest of eternity", as North bluntly put it, I was bored and still I guess a bit sad about Crystal. It was the first time that one of Jamie's descendants had died of unnatural causes. Actually, for the first week after her death, I firmly believed that Crystal would come back as I did, back to life without her memories shortly after her death. But days turned to weeks and so I've lost hope on that front again.

I must have lost track of the time again (watching the same girl every day drawing in her sketchbook got pretty old after the first few days), because I suddenly noticed that night had fallen. Moments later, Tooth showed up with several of her fairies. I was afraid that she would take the idea that another guardian and I would be in love forever very badly. I wasn't an idiot of course, I knew how much she fancied me for my teeth. But she took it rather well and seemed happy enough to fawn over me like an older sister would, and truthfully, I was completely okay with that.

She looked towards me but did not meet my eyes and I immediately knew that something was wrong. There was a tired and sad look on her face, the last time she had that expression was when Pitch came and stole all of the teeth and almost all of her fairies. I quickly asked, "Tooth? What's wrong?"

Tears began to fall gently down her face and I quickly swiped them away. Her eyes met mine and she murmured, "Jack…oh…Jack…" I could feel the blood drain out of my face at this point. What could possibly have made her so distraught?

She continued in a soft voice, "I was out with my fairies earlier tonight and I found something that I think you might want to see." Her wings fluttered and she smoothly flew out the window. Without a second thought, I called on the wind and flew after her. I noticed immediately that we were flying towards the cemetery, as it was on the opposite side of town and in a very secluded area. Both of us landed together in the oldest part of the cemetery, I knew Crystal was buried in the new part since I visited her whenever I had the chance. Tooth then began to walk directly to a grave marking, it was so dark that I could not really see anything. I created a ball of bright ice in my hand and nearly lost my focus on my power when I saw what was written in the stone: Jackson Overland Born: January 7th 1799 Died: December 2nd 1813.

I was in shock more than anything else. I have known since the battle for Earth that I had died and been reborn as Jack Frost, but it never occurred to me that since I died, a part of my history is here, in my hometown of Burgess. The fact that Tooth found it before me felt as though she was intruding on my privacy, yet it was also comforting.

Tooth finally spoke for the first time since we left the house, "I have to get back to watch Carrie but I figured that you would want to know about this. I will see you back at North's later okay?" I didn't respond, but she didn't really wait for an answer either. She took off to the sky and after a few seconds was gone.

As soon as she disappeared, the strength in my knees gave out and I fell on them in front of my…my grave. I began to cry, the tears falling down across my face at a rapidly increasing rate. I never really thought about my past, only that I became the guardian of Fun as a result of using hopscotch in order to save my little sister. To find this part of me nearly 400 years after my death was disorienting and upsetting. I then remembered my sister's sweet laugh as I did crazy and dangerous things in order to prove to her that there was nothing to be afraid of. I wonder what happened to her after I died.

I was kneeling in front of the grave for minutes, maybe hours when I felt a sudden tremor through the Earth. It was so strong that it knocked me onto my back. Disoriented, I stood up, only to nearly fall again when another tremor shook the ground. "What the…?" I wondered aloud. Looking upwards towards the entrance of the cemetery, there was a column of bright yellow light shooting up from the ground. Calling on the wind, I went to investigate.

As I approached the column of light, I felt a warmth envelope me until it came to be uncomfortable. Heat could seriously hurt me, but this wasn't that strong. It seemed as though it was more as a feeling more than a form of heat. Within seconds, I landed about 10 feet away from the column and stared in shock at it. The column was not just of light, encased within it was a girl, somewhere around my age. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was dropped open, somehow unconscious.

Well, as a guardian, I immediately touched my hook staff to the column expected to be able to disarm the light tomb, only to receive an electric shock. It wasn't that strong since I had not touched it with my hand, but I could tell that if I did, I would be in trouble. Just as I was about to formulate a plan about how to release the girl, the column vanished and the girl floated to the ground, like a feather.

Approaching cautiously, I saw that the girl actually had an aura around her, the same bright yellow as the column. I was honestly afraid that if I got to close, I would get shocked again, I am immortal, but I can still die again, I didn't want to risk it.

I decided to bring her to North, we had an infirmary set up there and we could speak to Man in Moon about this person to see what he knew. I called on separate winds now, one to carry me, and the other to carry the girl. It was a slow process, but I finally managed to get us both to the North Pole without any problems. As soon as I opened the door with a blast of ice, I nearly flew right into North, who appears to have been waiting for me.

His eyes grew wide in shock as he saw the girl who I brought with me and immediately took her out of my hands and carried her to a bed hooked up with many machines already. Once she was hooked up, I moved to ask North about what he knew, since he had clearly been expecting us both, but North beat me to it, "You must tell me everything. Every detail is important."

"But why?" I asked.

"Why? Ha!" North laughed boomingly, "I would have expected that you would have recognized her. You did carry her all this way." I shook my head slowly, "Well, I think you better take a closer look while you are here." I did as he asked and my heart began to pound furiously in fear and amazement in my chest. The girl on the bed had blond hair, and while I could not tell the color of her eyes at this moment, on her right hand, was a small star-shaped birthmark, one that I would never forget.

"But…how?" I croaked. She was dead, I saw her die before my very eyes. She was dead, how was she here. She was dead.

"I had hoped that you would be able to tell me. Man in Moon told me that someone new would be brought here, someone special, the new guardian." North raised an eyebrow in my direction, "I guess Sandy was right all those years ago."

"Maybe." I whispered. Crystal. A guardian. I couldn't believe it. I stumbled into a nearby chair and collapsed, head in my hands, still trying to understand why and how this could have happened. North sat opposite me and invited me to tell the story about how I found her. I told North everything that I knew, and towards the end, I remembered that the prophecy stated that Crystal and I would be in love. I smiled for the first time that night, really the first time in a while, and thought that maybe, just maybe, things were going to be in my favor.

Third Person POV

Unbeknownst to neither Jack nor North, a shadow was slowly creeping around outside, able to hear everything that was being said between the two guardians. It was in the shape of a man and it seemed to stare towards the sleeping Crystal on the bed. He smiled, a plan already forming in his head. While he had been trapped inside of his own prison for nearly 200 years, it was time to start working towards being believed in again, and he knew that this girl would be the key.

An almost imperceptible laugh escaped from the shadow and it faded away back towards civilization.