Please don't kill me. I added the first part of this because many of you wondered why Jack wasn't sleeping, and I wanted to bring the intrigue back into the story.


Jack laughed as the wind gently threw him in the air, and let him fall, waiting until the last second to pull him back up. It was the middle of August, and Jack was eagerly anticipating the return of winter. The territory he was allowed to bring snow to was growing slowly. Soon he would be able to return to his pond, and see his first believers again. Jack smiled. He couldn't wait.

Suddenly, Jack stopped, floating in midair over a small forest in Canada. He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He felt like he was being watched. Jack spun in midair, staff pointed in front of him as he stretched out all of his senses to try to find who was watching him. He shivered, this had been happening more and more often in the last few weeks. It had gotten to the point where Jack rarely stayed in more than one place for a few minutes, which had drastically cut into the time he spent asleep. It was pure chance that Jack had found Sandy's castle before he had passed out from exhaustion. Since then, he had been dropping by every few days to have somewhere he knew was safe to rest. He liked Sandy, he didn't ask a lot of questions that Jack didn't want to give the answers to, and he never pushed.

Just as Jack was about to start investigating the area to find out who was doing this, he felt magic above him. Looking up, he saw North's magical signal in the northern lights. Something had happened, and North was calling the guardians together. Forgetting about his stalker for now, Jack asked the wind to bring him to the North Pole as fast he could. He was needed elsewhere.

JACKFROST*TOOTHFAIRY*EASTERBUNNY*SANTACLAUS*SANDMAN*

North rubbed his eyes tiredly. He shouldn't have to deal with this, especially not so close to Christmas. Everyone was working doubly hard to catch up with the work that had been neglected when Jack was injured. He didn't have time to deal with anything else. But here he was, entertaining several very annoyed spirits.

But he was the unofficial leader of the guardians, and therefore all the other spirits had apparently decided that he was in charge of Jack in some way. Somehow he didn't think that these spirits had spent any time around Jack at all, if they thought that any one at all had control over the boy. This morning, several holiday and seasonal spirits had arrived at the North Pole, wanting to know if the rumor they had heard about a new guardian was true. No one seemed pleased when they learned it was in fact true, and that it was Jack Frost. They insisted that the guardians be called together so they could complain to the whole group. So North had sent out the signal, silently cursing uppity spirits that thought that they knew anything about being a guardian.

Bunnymund appeared first, opening his mouth immediately to ask what was going on, when he spotted the other spirits and instantly shut his mouth. Tooth and Sandy stayed just as quiet when they arrived. All of them had been expecting this for a while. They all knew that Jack didn't get along with any of the other spirits, and that Jack's new position would not be received well. Still, they were hoping that it would take longer, that they would have more time to get Jack to trust them more.

They stood there together, waiting for Jack to arrive, but the other spirits decided that they had had enough waiting. May Showers started out with, "How could any of you possible think that Jack Frost becoming a guardian was a good idea?"

JACKFROST*TOOTHFAIRY*EASTERBUNNY*SANTACLAUS*SANDMAN*

Jack didn't know what he had been expecting when he had flown into North's workshop through an open window near the top of the room, but it wasn't this. He settled on a one of the rafters, pulling his hood up to cover his hair and curled into a ball. Below him, the spirits were on their feet, shouting at each other. Jack curled into himself even more as the insults from the other spirits reached his ears.

It didn't matter to him that the other guardians were yelling just as loudly in his favor. No, all Jack could hear was the horrible insults that were being thrown about the room, the horrible things that were being said about him, that were said to his face every time he tried to connect with another spirit. That he was reckless, that he couldn't possibly care for the children properly, that he always wound up messing things up…

As the shouts got louder and louder, Jack curled up more and more. No one, not even Jack himself, noticed as the weather responded to his feelings, becoming more and more violent. Jacks head shot up as he felt the wind push against the building, trying to get in to comfort him, then he felt more than heard a window break. The room fell completely silent, except for the howling of the wind as it wiped around the room ferociously, looking for Jack. As the wind whipped around him, whispering lullaby's in his ear like a mother, Jack felt eyes on him once more. He looked down to see every eye in the building trained on him, unreadable expressions on their faces.

Suddenly, Jack decided that he couldn't deal with this anymore. He took off into the air, begging the wind without words to take him some place, any place, far away from here. He spun away into the air, heedless of the shouts behind him to come back.


I'm sorry! I was writing a perfectly good bonding chapter between Jack and Bunnymund when the plot bunny hit me. And it would not go away! here are some answers to reviews:

21SidraCire: I was actually thinking about doing something like that during chapter 4 when I introduced the snow creatures, but then I thought that since Jack is 12 in this story their was no way the others would let him live alone. But I think I might add in some kind of hideout for Jack, or have Jack take over part of each of the other guardians houses.

Thank you to all my reviewers, seeing what you think of my story always makes me want to write more. Thank you especially to the guest named Annie and Mythalena Roserrie, who's reviews helped me get through hard parts of this chapter. I love hearing that people enjoy my work, so please keep those reviews going.