A/N: I posted this chapter (the last one that I had written) on the morning of the first short track event at Sochi. This is the A/N I posted at that time:

"Hi! Another chapter. I was gonna save it for tomorrow, but I thought I'd post it today in honor of the first short track events at Sochi. (PS, congrats to the winners! I'd put their names here, but I know a lot of people haven't watched yet.)

As an aside, all of the events of this fic are fully planned at this point, down to the times and Olympic placing. None of the actual events at Sochi are going to be influencing the plot of this fic, though I did incorporate some details like what Sochi uniforms look like and such. I have a lot of conflicted feelings about Sochi itself and the way things are being handled there, but I still love the Olympics. So while I'm using Sochi as a setting, I'm using it as a somewhat fictionalized setting.

All that aside, I hope you enjoy the chapter!"

Anyway, after that, I got hurt. Hence the looooong hiatus. Back to work!

Easter fell late that year, and even though it was early evening, Jack still had no need for the hoodie he carried in his arms. He'd taken it just in case; when he'd told his parents he was going for a walk after dinner, his father had fussed at him until he'd agreed to take a jacket with him. Jack couldn't help but roll his eyes at the thought. It wasn't as if he spent half his life on ice or anything. Since Vancouver, he'd cut down on his already light course load and thrown himself into his training. He'd lost a lot of time to recuperation and physical therapy, and it was only with grueling twelve hour training days that he was finally starting to get back to where he'd been a year ago. With luck, he'd be even better than he had been a year ago before he started in on the competition circuit again. It was easier to think about that kind of thing with hope now instead of despair, and Jack knew exactly who to thank for that.

With that in mind, Jack peered around the clearing for any sign of his friend. He hadn't been able to get out of his house until a little ways after seven and the evening light was already starting to dim. Sunset couldn't have been too far off, and Jack never would have forgiven himself if he'd managed to miss Aster. It scared him a little when he thought about how much he'd come to look forward to their brief meetings, and he regularly reminded himself that he and Aster knew very little about each other. He didn't know about Aster's job or his family, and before last year, Aster hadn't even known what Jack was working so hard for. Still, as much as he would have liked to, it was hard to deny that the days went by more slowly when Easter was on its way, and his heart always sped up when the moment of truth was near.

Like it was now. Jack's heart was beating so hard and so fast that he was sure that Aster would be able to find him just from the sound of it. He was so focused on the quick th-thump of his heartbeat that he almost missed the sound of a cracking branch behind him. He spun around, instantly tensing before he realized exactly who he was looking at. He sighed. "Jeez, Aster, you scared the bejeezus out of me."

Aster gave him a tired grin. "Evening, Jack," he said, and his voice was just casual enough that Jack was suddenly and unequivocally sure that that had been his game all along. "How's the leg?"

Jack looked down at his ankle and wiggled his foot in a little circle pointedly. "Way better. It healed a lot more quickly than any of the doctors thought it would." He gave Aster a knowing look. "How 'bout that?"

The corners of Aster's eyes crinkled up when he smiled, and Jack couldn't help but grin back in response. "Funny how that works," he replied. He came a bit further into the clearing with a lurching hop, then seated himself on a large rock not too far away from the lake where they'd first met. He sighed deeply, and Jack had to fight back the sudden, inane urge to pet his ears in comfort.

Instead, Jack simply trailed after him and plopped himself on the ground next to the rock. "Long day?"

"You have no idea, Snowbird. More than 190 countries and two billion children are a lot to cover in one day, even with magic," he said, and Jack could hear every step he'd taken in the weary tone of his voice.

"Wow," was all Jack could think to say. But seriously, wow. "Don't you have any help?"

"Well, some of the googies have gotten right good at hiding themselves," Aster said thoughtfully, "But other than that, it's just yours truly." At Jack's incredulous look, he chuckled lowly. "Don't worry yourself over it, Jacko. I like it better that way. I'd never have the patience to command troops like some of the others do."

"Others?" Jack latched onto this eagerly. "There are others?"

"Of course there are," Aster said, quirking an eyebrow. "What, is Easter the only holiday you lot celebrate?"

Jack scooted closer. "Well, no, but most people don't believe in spirits or whatever for the others." He leaned his head back so he could size Aster up. "Then again, most people don't exactly believe in the Easter Bunny, either."

"Most adults don't," Aster corrected, reaching down to ruffle Jack's hair and laughing when he spluttered. "If the children stopped believing, well, then we'd have a problem."

Jack smoothed back his hair and attempted a glare, but he was far too interested to keep it up for long. "What kind of problem?" he asked.

Aster looked to be considering something, and he gave Jack a long, level look before he said, "Belief is power, Snowbird. We can't help anyone who doesn't believe in us. Most adults can't even see us. And the kiddiwinks depend on us. Not all spirits have a specialty, but the strong ones do." He paused a moment, hesitation present in the tense, exhausted lines of his body. "The Guardians do."

Jack turned and leaned back on the rock so he could more easily look up at Aster. "What are Guardians?"

"Guardians," Aster said slowly, "Protect children. More importantly, we protect what's inside 'em. Children contain some of the most important things in the world. Wonder. Memories. Dreams." He paused for a moment. "Hope. Every child has a light in them, and when that light is snuffed out, it's disastrous. Without that light, the world has nothing but darkness."

Jack was silent for a minute as he digested that. Aster had said "we". "So you're a Guardian?"

"Yep," Aster replied. "Guardian of Hope, at your service." He gave Jack a wry smile. "That's why it's so important that I get all the eggs out, mate. Easter calls up spring, and spring brings new birth. New chances. Hope."

Jack remembered the year before, the gentle swell of hope within him that Aster's kind words had managed to stir up. All of Aster's steady, encouraging words about second chances. The way Aster had said "just doing my job". He really had been, hadn't he? Suddenly, Jack had to tilt his head down and pretend to examine the lake in front of them. He couldn't stand to look Aster in the eyes anymore. He had no doubt that his skating would improve, not anymore, but a smaller, more private hope inside him was curling in on itself like a page of a book cast into the fire. He'd really been an idiot, hadn't he?

"Oi, Jack." He felt Aster stir behind him, then sit forward so he could lay a paw on his shoulder. "What's the trouble?"

Jack brought his knees up to his chest and looked down at them as if they held the answers he sought. "Nothing. Just something dumb." Seriously dumb. Sure, most pro athletes were attention-seekers to some degree, but apparently he was lonely and foolish enough to think that mythical creatures would find him special.

"Jack," Aster said again, and his voice was low. "I can feel it, y'know. When hope goes out."

Jack's head thumped onto his knees. Seriously? Then he'd been even more transparent than he'd thought. "I just..." He swallowed, prepared himself for the mocking that was sure to come his way. "I don't know. I just felt like we were becoming friends." Or something like it.

"What?" Aster drew away from him, and Jack tried not to let that sting too much. It was nothing he hadn't expected.

Jack raised his head a little so he could scuff one shoe against the grass. "Last time, what you said and-and what you did. They meant a lot to me," he said, humiliation burning through him with the confession. There was nothing more embarrassing than admitting that your feelings were stronger than someone else's. "I didn't realize you meant it when you said you were just doing your job."

"Ah." Aster said with such a specific brand of understanding that Jack couldn't help but scowl at the ground. "That's what this is all about?"

Jack nodded, the lump in his throat preventing him from saying anything more. He tried to summon up the TV smile he'd had to use on all those reporters asking "How did you feel when you realized you were out of the games?" That brittle grin that covered up those negative emotions that no one really wanted to see. The "I'm fine!" you answer when people ask you how you're doing, because rarely did people mean those words sincerely. People didn't really want to deal with his issues. They just wanted a grin and a sound bite. He'd thought that Aster was different, but...

"You silly little drongo."

Jack jerked to attention at that. He wasn't 100% sure what a drongo was, but that had definitely sounded disparaging. "Hey!" he snapped. Sure, he'd been dumb, but Aster didn't have to be such an ass about it. He turned to give him a piece of his mind, only to be stopped short when he saw the expression on Aster's face. It wasn't condescending or cruel. If anything it was fond. "I-what?"

Aster shook his head, that peculiar expression still firmly seated on his face. "You really are a right idiot, Jack. Do you really think I tell these things to just anyone?"

"I-" Jack paused for a moment, perplexed. "No?"

"Of course I don't, ya galah." Galah? "I can't remember the last time I told a human about these things."

Jack turned his whole body this time, ignoring the way their feet jostled together, so he could get a good look at Aster. "Seriously?"

Aster nodded. "They're not just my secrets I'm trusting you with, Jack. The four of us work hard to protect the natural way of things, and I wouldn't risk that for someone that I didn't..." he trailed off, struggling for words. "That I didn't care about," he finally finished, though he didn't look pleased with what he'd settled on. "I helped you out to protect hope, but also to give you hope. It's the very best gift I have, Snowbird, and I wasn't about to let you sit there and cry without giving you my best."

Jack watched Aster spit the words out, wrestling with emotions as foreign to him as they were to Jack, and he shook his head. He really was an idiot. He felt a grin start to creep up on his face. A total idiot.

"There now," Aster said, taking in his grin with some satisfaction. "All straightened out?"

Jack nodded, still not trusting his voice quite enough to speak, but he scooted closer and angled his body so they could better talk.

"Ace. Now, I believe you asked about the others?"

Jack perked up. "Yeah!"

Aster leaned forward conspiratorially. "Well, there are three other than me. There's the Sandman-great guy, works with Dreams. And the Tooth Fairy-she's a bit flighty, but her Memory work can't be beat. And then there's North," he said, making a face.

"North?" Jack asked, head spinning. The Sandman and the Tooth Fairy were real? What next, Santa?

"I believe the littlies call him Santa nowadays."

"Oh my god. Santa's real?" Jack asked, leaning forward, right up into Aster's space.

Aster rolled his eyes. "Oh yeah. Real big, real loud, real up himself..."

"Oh my god," Jack repeated. "You know Santa!"

"Oi," Aster said, starting to puff up. "He's not that great, y'know. He's just an old blowhard with terrible taste in colors."

Jack started to open his mouth to spout out another stunned iteration of but Santa! when he recognized the sulky tone in Aster's voice. That was jealousy right there, or he'd eat his skates. And, he supposed, it made sense that Aster might feel insecure in the face of the glory of all that was Christmas. When it came up between eggs and presents, he doubted most children would pick the eggs. Then again, he was starting to get the feeling that most children weren't getting the same eggs he was from Aster. Remembering the delicate scrollwork on the egg from last year and the intricate little designs on the egg from the year before (both preserved carefully on a shelf next to his bed back in town), he patted Aster's knee. "I gotta admit, Christmas colors are way tackier than Easter colors."

"Right? There's artistry in Easter that that pompous old windbag couldn't hope to match, not with a thousand yetis!" Aster sniffed, exhaustion forgotten in the face of righteous indignation.

"Uh." Yetis? "Yeah. Easter's pretty great," Jack said, and he found that he meant it. Perhaps it was because he had something special to look forward to now, but he'd been looking forward to Easter more than Christmas for the last couple years now. He considered telling Aster that, imagining the way it might make him crow in triumph, but then decided to keep that information to himself. He'd shared enough embarrassing information today, thank you.

"Good man, Jack," Aster said, clapping him on the shoulder and causing Jack to rock forward with the force of it. "See that you remember it."

"You know," said Jack quickly, doing his best to smother the laughter that he was only just holding back, "They all sound really great. I wish I could meet them."

"Actually," he said, tightening his grip on Jack's shoulder and turning a shrewd eye on him. "Wouldn't be surprised if you already have, Snowbird. Have you been having better dreams than usual lately?"

"Um." Jack thought back over the past few months. Yeah, he'd been having much better dreams lately, but he'd been attributing that to his visits with Aster. Ever since they had met for the second time, Jack's nightmares about drowning in dark water had subsided. He'd just kind of assumed that the pleasant dreams could be ascribed to the same thing. "I guess?"

"Yeah, I thought Sandy's been looking shifty lately," Aster said thoughtfully, letting go of Jack's shoulder and leaning back. "Think they might've noticed me changing my patterns."

"Sandy?" Jack asked. "Like as in the Sandman? Your friend the Sandman's been stalking me?" It was official. Jack's life was too weird for words.

"'Stalking' is a bit harsh. More likely he just wants to help. Sandy's always had the uncanny ability to know who needs the best dreams."

Jack snorted. "Sure, okay." Then a thought occurred to him. "He uh. He doesn't see the dreams he's giving people, does he?"

Aster's eyebrows shot up his forehead, but he shook his head. "I think he gets bits here and there, but nothing too detailed," he said. "Why? What sort of things have you been dreaming about, Snowbird?"

Oh, not much. Just soft fur and warm embraces. A companionship that he could enjoy off the rink for once. A maybe-friend who just might think he was worth investigating a little more closely. Just little things that would embarrass him for the rest of his life if anyone else knew about them. "Nothing that bad," he said, looking away. "It's just weird."

Aster still looked curious, but he seemed to have the maturity to know when not to prod. (Which made him different from Jack-he probably never would have let a friend live this down.) "No dramas, Jacko. Sandy's a pro. All of us are, even North. We're good at our jobs, and we like them. He wouldn't go spying on you."

The corner of Jack's mouth twisted up, but he nodded. Not much to be done about it, he supposed. At least he didn't have to worry about the nocturnal visits from the Tooth Fairy anymore. He'd lost the last of his baby teeth long ago.

Aster seemed to remember something then. He sat up straight and made a small sound of inspiration. "Ah! That reminds me. Got something for you, mate," he said, he then he dug around in one of the pockets of his bandolier.

Jack pulled himself up onto his knees. After a few years of this, he thought he knew what was coming.

Sure enough, Aster produced another lovingly crafted egg from one of his pouches. "Here you are, Snowbird."

Jack took the egg carefully and put it up to his face to inspect more closely. This one appeared to have been made with pressed flowers, a dizzying array of colors represented in the blooms decoupaged across the surface of the egg. It should have been gaudy, ugly even, but instead it possessed a delicate beauty. The colors seemed to flow together seamlessly, and he couldn't imagine how many steps had gone into the creation of this egg. Just the fact that pressed flowers had been used spoke to a forethought not usually seen in egg decorating. "I-"

"Easter's late this year, and spring's well underway. Thought it might be nice to stick to the theme," Aster said, and Jack realized with a start that there was nervousness there. All that talk about being a professional and the importance of Easter... Was Aster trying to impress him?

"Aster, this is great," he said, for once allowing true sincerity to bleed into the compliment. "I love it. I'll put it with the others as soon as I get back."

Aster's ears perked up at that. "You've been keeping them, then?"

"Of course I have," Jack replied. Why on earth wouldn't he? They were gorgeous. He'd had more than one friend ask him where he'd gotten them. "I keep them all next to my bed." He paused. "Well, not all of them. That first one was an actual egg, so I had to eat it."

That finally startled laughter out of Aster. "Well, yeah. I wasn't exactly prepared for you that first year. You nearly took a decade off my life when you started talking to me," he said, chuckling at the memory.

"I scared you? I was just minding my own business and suddenly there was a giant rabbit standing next to me! I thought I was going crazy!" Jack said, laughing along. In retrospect, it was pretty funny. They'd probably looked like gaping fish for a few minutes there.

Aster just laughed harder at that, and might have gone on for some time if his laughter hadn't been interrupted by a bone-cracking yawn. Oh right, Jack reminded himself. 190+ countries. 2 billion children. Before he could think about it, he reached up to smooth back ruffled fur on one of Aster's long ears. "You seem beat. Do you need to go-I don't know, wherever you go?" he asked, trying to keep the disappointment from his voice.

Aster stilled at the touch, and Jack almost jerked his hand away before Aster butted his head against Jack's palm lightly. "Yeah," he said, and there was genuine regret in his voice that set something thrilling through Jack's body. He levered himself up from the rock and staggered over to a bare patch of ground. "I should probably head back to the warren for some shut-eye."

And that brought up a whole other host of questions, but even Jack could tell that now was not the time to ask them. "Good night, then," he said lamely, wishing he could think up something cool and snappy to set Aster on his way.

"Good night, Snowbird," Aster replied and then did something odd with his foot and disappeared before Jack's eyes. It wasn't until the hole closed that Jack even realized that it had been open, and he stared at the small, unobtrusive violet flower standing where Aster had been. It had been the first time that Aster had actually left in front of him, had shown him the way he came and went, and Jack couldn't help but take this as a good sign. Aster had implied earlier that he trusted him, and maybe this was just another way of showing it.

He looked down at his floral little egg again and smiled. Jack wasn't entirely sure where they were headed, but he had a feeling that it was somewhere good.

A/N:

Notes on Jack's egg: This time, I went for a decoupage design. Usually decoupage is using a glue mixture (or something like mod podge) to stick paper onto something, but flower petals are also a thing! It would have been pretty difficult to get them on there without the colors running, but Aster's a pro.

I hope you enjoyed! Thank you for reading. Next time, the big, lonely elephant in the room gets addressed.