When Jack woke, the room was dark and silent. For a moment he remained frozen, heart beating fast against his ribcage as he surveyed the unfamiliar room. Finally his mind caught up with the events of the night before and his panic slowed, heart beat lessening. He shifted slightly in his chair as the panic left but the sense of unease remained. He shouldn't have fallen asleep, shouldn't have gotten so comfortable. If there was one thing Jack knew, it was that people didn't really want him around. Most ignored him, and those that didn't, well, they didn't make their animosity towards him a secret. Even those who tolerated him for business didn't really like him. He liked the Burkes, and Neal and Mozzie. He didn't want to overstay his welcome too soon.

For a moment the thought filtered out of his mind, and he let himself imagine life if he wasn't Jack Frost. He didn't let himself do it often, in fact he avoided it whenever he could. As long as he didn't think about it too much he loved his life, or at least didn't mind it. But when he let his mind wander into 'what ifs' things tended to turn sour. Still, he couldn't stop himself from just this once imagining staying on this comfy chair, or even moving to the couch, and falling back asleep until someone came downstairs in the morning. Maybe Mrs. Burke would start making pancakes and he'd get a mile high stack and a big glass of milk as they chatted over the meal. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to try, just to see if… no.

They would get tired of him eventually, people always did. He had to make this last. He shifted once more, noting with surprise that someone had thrown a blanket over him. He didn't know whether to smile or grimace as the kindness brought on a pang of desire. He wanted to stay, wanted this kindness, this small act of care. But he couldn't. He was Jack Frost and he wasn't supposed to care about any of that kind of stuff, let alone want it. Taking another deep breath he moved to put his feet on the floor to stand, only to feel something beneath his feet. Starting, he looked down to see a box beneath the chair. He opened it slowly and grinned. Neal had remembered his shoes. It was a pair of sturdy looking blue and white sneakers that looked like they would last for years, made with real leather and tough soles. The man had even though to add a pair of socks, considerate since Jack hadn't worn any since his old shoes completely fell apart.

The boy slipped on the sock and shoes, once more ignoring the sharp sting in his chest- this was payment, nothing more, he reminded himself. Jack grinned as he wiggled his toes. Perfect fit! Perhaps a little big but that was even better, he could grow into them. He made to move when he noticed the rumpled blanket. What kind of guest would he be if he left a mess like that? He began folding the cloth, taking his time to make sure it was absolutely perfect.

Finally ready to go he stood, stopping when he saw that the cake was still sitting on the low table from the night before. Surely Elizabeth wouldn't mind if he took another piece, she had offered it last night after all, hadn't she? He sat down and helped himself to a large slice. In the back of his mind the teen knew he was stalling, almost hoping someone would wake up and come down to tell him to stay for breakfast. However, the Burke's and their dog all remained blissfully asleep, and as Jack licked the last of the frosting off of his fingertips, he knew that he had no more reason to stay.

Grabbing his coat and cinching it tight around his waist he looked outside, the snow was falling quickly now past the streetlights, wind whipping it in all directions. A smile played with a frown on his lips. He loved the snow, but no one would be out to play with him at this time of night, and so for once it didn't look fun and inviting, only cold. He stepped out into the freezing weather, bundled up warmly, and walked on to where his only belongings were held, knowing that this night there would be no distractions to fight against the loneliness constantly welling up inside.


Peter wasn't surprised to find Jack gone by the time he woke up. He fingered the folded blanket and looked down at the empty shoebox. It had taken them a while the night before to realize that Jack had fallen asleep. Too long really. They had been talking for at least ten minutes when Neal turned to ask the boy something only to go quiet. Jack had seemed so much younger than, curled up in the chair fast asleep and completely relaxed. Objectively, Peter had known that Jack was only fifteen, but the boy had never seemed that young. He was too confident, too sure of himself. He put up such a strong, brave front that you forgot who you were talking to. He was just a kid, and at that moment he didn't even look the fifteen years he was. He was so short, so skinny, he only looked to be thirteen max. That kid was living on the streets, picking pockets and dealing information for a living.

Peter shook himself slightly. He knew that Jack was perfectly capable out there. He'd been on his own for years, had learned to survive the harshness of the world, but that was even worse. A kid his age shouldn't have to learn how to survive. They should be at home complaining about homework and chores. Obviously the rest of the room had felt the same the night before because all conversation stopped. Elizabeth began to quietly clear off the table, leaving only the cake and the empty candy box behind as Mozzie grabbed a blanket to wrap over the boy. Peter went to retrieve the shoebox Neal had given him to keep so that they wouldn't forget to give it to the pale teen. Neal took it from his hands and laid it at the feet of the sleeping child with all the silence and care of a master thief.

For a moment the four had stood in the archway to the kitchen, silence reining among the group as the watched the child's sleeping form. Finally Elizabeth spoke, her voice low. "He won't be here when we wake up, will he?"

"No." Neal answered voice just as quiet.

"When he comes for the trial, tell him… tell him this was fun. We'd love to have him again."

Both Neal and Peter nodded, still watching the sleeping child. Not a one of the four mentioned the risks in leaving a strange boy in their house for the night and Peter didn't even bother to joke about making sure nothing was missing the next day. They knew that everything would be in place.

They had looked on for a moment more before the two criminals made their way to the door, leaving without a breath of noise beyond the whirling wind outside. Jack shivered as a lick of the cold air touched his sleeping form but quickly stilled, his body well used to the cold. Peter and Elizabeth had watched for a few seconds more before retiring to bed themselves, though it was long before they finally fell asleep.

Now as Peter stood surveying the room in the early hours of the morning, he wasn't surprised to find Jack gone, though he was disappointed. It had been freezing last night, but Jack had still gone, silent as a specter and disappearing like frost on a sunny day. He turned as he heard Elizabeth making her way down the stairs, catching sight of the nearly empty cake plate as he did so and couldn't stop from smiling, his eyes rolling a little of their own accord.

"I think Jack liked your dessert honey, seems like he had a slice for breakfast."

The woman came into the living room, a sad smile on her lips. "Good. We couldn't have eaten it all anyway." She sighed. "I knew he wouldn't be here, but I still kind of hoped."

Peter nodded in reply, but otherwise didn't speak as they made their way to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. Peter had just sat down with a bowl of cereal when Neal let himself him, smiling as he sat down next to the agent and accepted a mug from the amused El. "I figured your house would seem empty without an adorable thief so I thought I'd come over."

Peter snorted and rolled his eyes, but said nothing against the man's presence as he drank his coffee. "He took your shoes."

"Good, knew he would. What did you think about him? Now that you know him."

Peter sighed. "I think… I think he's a good kid. He's in a bad situation and has a slightly skewered sense of ethics, but he's not bad. He's smart and friendly for a stranger we found on the streets. I still say he much too like you for my tastes."

"Well I like him!" Elizabeth interjected proudly as she set a bowl next to Neal and reached for the cereal. "He acts different around you guys, but you should see him when it's just the two of us. He's awkward and shy and adorable."

Peter snorted. "Doesn't sound like the Jack Frost we know."

Neal hummed. "No it doesn't."

"So how about you?"

"Oh, I like him. And Mozzie's already trying to come up with a way to recruit him."

"Somehow, I don't think it'll be that hard."

"No, that's for sure. He has guts. That necklace stunt could have gone a lot worse than it did."

Peter frowned. There was something bugging him about that whole story. "Why tell us where the necklace is now? I said I wouldn't turn him in, and I won't, but he doesn't know that. He doesn't know any of us."

Neal shrugged. "That's not necessarily true. He was a fan remember, knew all about our past cases. I guess he just… felt like we wouldn't take it."

Peter snorted. "That's dangerous for a kid- for anyone- in his position. He's too trusting." He caught sight of the folded blanket on the living room couch. "And at the same time, not trusting enough." Neal began to speak, but before he could a low beeping filled the air and Peter looked down to his phone. "Diana. She said she may have found something on Jack last night, wants to show it to me as soon as I get in."

"Not to mention that meeting with Bryson you have."

Peter groaned. "You're right. I have to talk to him about the trial. He wasn't happy that Jack refused to come in to talk with him."

Neal shrugged. "We shouldn't have a problem as long as Jack sticks to the facts."

"I guess. Well, we'd better get going." The man rose to give his wife a quick kiss before following Neal out to the car. "Any clue where Jack stays?"

"Not much. According to Mozzie he's seen the kid around the parks a lot, both the one near my place and the Timmy Nolan children's park. He didn't notice him at first obviously, but now that he knows what the kid looks like he remembers seeing him all over."

"Should I be concerned that Mozzie is spending so much time at a children's park."

"Just reminiscing about his favorite politician."

"Ah." Conversation stopped as Peter parked the car, the two getting out to make their way up to the FBI office, only to be stopped almost immediately by Diana the second they got off the elevator on their floor.

"I think I found something, but… it's weird."

"What is it?"

She led them to her desk, where stacks of files sat surrounding her laptop. Clicking a few keys she brought up a picture of Jack a few years younger, his eyes wide and a little scared. "I found this in an archive about the children in the foster care system. He was put into the system four years ago and disappeared three years ago. Apparently, beyond a simple required report filed with the police, there wasn't much of a search. It seems he was returned to the center a lot for pulling pranks."

"What's so weird about that? Seems pretty cut and dry to me." Neal asked.

"Check out the name." She commanded and Neal did, eyebrows rising when he saw it.

"John Doe."

"The social worker couldn't get a name out of him, or a name of his parents, where he came from or anything. He refused to answer. It was almost like he didn't exist five year ago."

Peter frowned. "Sounds like a dead end."

"I found more." The woman said, handing her boss a file. The same picture stared out from behind the pages. "There was a police report entered about the same time Jack was put into the system about a boy his age breaking into a summer cottage during the winter and squatting there until the owners came in the fall and found him. I did some digging and confirmed that the boy found matches his description and that he was entered into the foster care system when he refused to give a name."

"Look and see if you can find anything from before he was found there."

"Already did. This is where it gets weird. It took a lot of digging but I found a boy matching his description who disappeared four years ago. The only problem is, he didn't go missing, he died."

"What?"

The woman pulled up a file on her computer, showing a picture of a boy much younger than Jack, though with his same mischievous smirk and twinkle in his eyes. The boy had chocolate brown hair and eyes, and was only about ten years old, but it was irrefutably Jack. "This is Jackson Overland. His parents died seven years ago and he and his younger sister Emma Overland were both put into the foster care system. Again, they were sent back a lot because of Jack's pranks. He took his sister ice skating while at his last house and fell through some thin ice. When help came he was gone and the lake was already partially frozen again. They weren't able to do a body search that time of year, but they never found one when they did one that summer. Guess which lake that cabin was on."

"Finger lakes."

"That's right."

Peter sighed. "Do you have info on the last family he stayed with?"

"Yep, for both times. Even better I have the phone and address of his social worker and his sister's current address."

"Great." The man said, accepting the file she handed him. "We'll check it out after the trial. Any hits on any of the other names we gave you."

"Nothing significant but don't worry, I have my eyes open. How did the dinner go?"

"Surprisingly normal. If you ignore that the dinner talk was all about crimes."

The woman chuckled once before turning back to the computer. "I'll keep looking into the Guardians thing, see what I can find."

"Thanks." Peter said with a nod as he and Neal separated to do their work, Neal to his desk and Peter to the conference room to meet with Bryson. The lawyer was flipping through his files agitatedly and only looked up when the agent entered.

"Remind me again why I can't speak with our prime witness?"

"He refuses to. He says that it doesn't matter what he says as long as it's the truth."

"And does he know how easy it is for a lawyer to twist his words?"

The man could only shrug. "I don't know. He's not bad at twisting words himself though."

Bryson just sighed in aggravation. "It would probably just make things worse if he tried."

Peter shrugged. "I don't think he'll really try anything. For now, let's just focus on my testimony, something we know we can work with."

"Fine."


Baby Tooth looked up from her computer as Phil, Santa's right hand man and the last person to be interrogated, left the hall. The Guardians were all still in the globe room, crowded around the computer monitors and laptops that gave them access to everywhere in the world, discussing their next steps. Someone half-heartedly suggested running the interrogations again, but they knew it was a lost cause. If North hadn't found them the first time, then he wouldn't a second. She sighed and listened with half an ear. So long as the name Jack Frost wasn't mentioned, she couldn't see the conversation being much trouble.

Instead, she focused on the computer she was currently hacking, one belonging to a female FBI agent named Diana Barragan. She had been the one to enter the information on the guardians, so the Tooth Fairy had put her on the top watch list. The girl frowned as she reviewed what the woman had been up to. Aside from the usual FBI stuff, there were a series of searches into archives and old newspapers and police reports; all seeming to stem from a few years ago and searching for information on a boy in his early teens. That in itself should have been clue enough for the girl, but it wasn't until she pulled up the file the woman was currently viewing that she realized what she was looking at.

"Jack…" She whispered, looking at the picture of the young by, hair a silver white and eyes stunningly blue. The woman was researching Jack, trying to find out who he was. Her mouth went dry as she saw what the woman had found, from the brown haired child to the police reports. The girl bit her lip. She should tell Jack about this, she really should. But… he never talked about his past. Whenever she even hinted to it he would close up, barely talking until they got off the subject. The most she could ever get out of him was a shrug or a mumbled 'I dunno'. This could be her one chance to find out more about the boy she called her best friend.

With a deep breath she closed the window, determined not to breathe a word, despite the shadows of guilt squirming around her stomach. Luckily she was soon distracted by the Guardians leaving the globe room.

"Maybe we must expand the search." Santa offered.

"To who?" Bunny responded in irritation. "Who haven't you already questioned?"

Baby Tooth felt her heart pound nervously, but no one could give reply, Jack Frost far from their minds. Finally Sandy played a ringtone on his tablet, showing it to the group to get their attention. At it's center was a large picture of the moon.

"You think Manny's doing this?" Tooth asked, surprised.

"Nah, mate. He woulda told us if he was."

"Not necessarily." Santa said, eyes focused. "It is possible that he wanted us known for the same reasons we were considering."

"He's never done anything like this though." Tooth argued before spotting her worker watching them. "Any more news?"

The girl shook her head. "They have alerts out for all of Pitch's known aliases but nothing's been triggered so far. There isn't anything new about us, it's all just FBI stuff."

The woman sighed but nodded, that was what she had been expecting. "Keep your eyes open."

"I will."