A/N Hey howdy hey! I hope everyone is doing well and I seriously want to thank everyone who has reviewed, favorited and followed this story - you guys are superb and I love you all! *hands out free cookies*

This will have no strict schedule and will be updated whenever I please. SO. About this -, right there. Take this seriously. I have just started college, (applause, applause, I know.) and so I am quite busy at the moment. I will be updating, but updates will probably be sporadic and with waits in between chapters. So just keep in mind that I haven't ditched you guys, I'm simply doing other things.

Though, I do have something that should be coming in a couple of weeks - I'm quite excited about writing it. I'm not sure if I'll be posting it here on Snowbank, or if it'll be its own thing. So keep your eyes open! :) Enjoy!


Jack wasn't sure what was happening to him.

Ever since he had been risen from the lake, he had always craved the company of others - humans or spirits, it didn't really matter. He longed to be acknowledged and to be spoken too - to feel as though he truly existed - even if just for a tiny moment.

Company had always come fleetingly though. His cold, reckless nature, what he was... it had all forced him to learn how to exist without it. It wasn't uncommon for him to go years without ever seeing or speaking to another spirit.

And that was just how it was - he was used to it.

None of them really cared where he was or what he was doing unless it was somehow effecting them. And while not all the company he occasionally got was bad, like Sandman... he had learned, rather painfully, that it was often better to avoid the other spirits. And after a long while, he stopped actively seeking them out - though Bunny was sometimes the exception to that self-imposed rule.

And as much as he loathed being alone and ignored - as often as he had abandoned the human world, when he left their great cities and stopped his desperate efforts to be seen for a time so that he could rage and scream in the safety of Antarctica and recovered from buried pains in the comfort of his element... as much as it hurt... it was still familiar.

It was normal.

He had always survived on his own.

He didn't know how else to survive.

But now... now he was a shaking, trembling mess after just a few days of being alone and he didn't understand why. He felt so terribly desperate for company all the time now - and there was this constant fear that if he were to be gone for too long... that it would all go away.

And he couldn't let that happen.

He had to keep checking in - every few days or weeks even, depending on how long he had managed to make himself stay away this time... he always ended up having to go back to them.

The waves of relief that would come crashing over him when they saw him and greeted him happily was the only cure to his awful anxiety - around them, the guardians or Jamie and his friends, and only around them could he finally relax and think straight. The trembling in his limbs would stop and the sick foreign feeling in his stomach would cease.

And it was so confusing!

Jack had never been so dependent on anything to survive, to operate and to think before all of this happened. Why did he feel like he needed it so badly now?

He felt tied down and trapped, with nowhere to turn and escape to. He truly loved being free and being able to do whatever he wanted whenever he pleased but now he had to go back. It almost wasn't a choice now.

And he hated it.

Everything was just falling apart - everything that had he had done to be able to survive on his own for so long was being undone. Everything that had been constant for the last three centuries was suddenly different and changing and he had no idea how to keep up with it all!

He wanted to be a Guardian! He wanted it more than anything else and he was determined to be the best guardian he could possibly be. Jack wanted to protect kids and to play with them and to be there for them when they fell.

He wanted to be real to them.

But he couldn't, he just couldn't need anyone else to be there for him... he didn't know how to survive that way.

No one had ever been there to catch him when he fell.


A/N I am not terribly fond of this ending, I will admit. But I wanted to put something out for you guys and let you know what was going on with me.

Jack, as you could probably tell, is having issues. And there reason for it is because, one does not simply break three hundred years of habit.

Ohmergawwsh - it just isn't done! Jack has taken care of himself for THREE HUNDRED YEARS. He's built up walls and securities and found ways to get by without basic human contact for centuries and somehow convinced himself that he doesn't really need it. It's a protection. And now he's a guardian and THOSE BASIC HUMAN NEEDS are being offered to him but he doesn't know what to do with it.

He doesn't know how to survive that way.

And subconsciously, he wants it in the most desperate, heartbreaking kind of way. But on top, it's completely different to the way he's lived and survived for a very long time - he's got himself a system that has kept him going and now it's being changed without his permission and it's confusing and frustrating for him. He doesn't want to throw away his protection and he doesn't want to feel like he needs anybody - he's gotten by without them all before. And what if none of this worked out? Then he's on his own again and he wants to be prepared and okay with that if it should happen. It will just hurt more otherwise.

Anyhow. If y'all need anything else to read, check out Winter's Time by my good friend, Drowning-Ostrich. It's amazing and she's putting a lot of effort into it!

Review?

DragonflyonBreak