A/N: Thanks for the reviews guys^^

This next chapter is dedicated to all of you who continue to read and support me.

Chapter 14

It's all a dream.

That's what she tells herself. The man out of her nightmares did not just come out in front of her, claiming her for himself. Someone did not jump out and save her by shooting him with ice. That someone was not at her side right now, helping her up while his staff lay a few feet away.

No, it wasn't Jack who was at her side.

She constantly tells herself this, but there is no mistaking him. He's dressed in the same clothes that he arrived in. Also, there was no mistaking that brown hair and those blue eyes. As much as she wanted to believe it was all just some random nightmare, the fact was that this was really happening.

Jack was the one who had saved her.

"Hey, are you alright?" he asks her.

She looks up at him and sees the same amount of concern in them that she normally sees, giving her all the more confirmation that this was her Jack, alright. That ruled out the possibility that it was some stranger who looked just like him and was even dressed exactly the same way he was. Her gaze shifts to the staff.

"Jack, you…" she starts to say, but he cuts her off.

"This isn't the time or place to discuss this." He tells her. "But, I assure you, it's not a dream."

Great, she thinks, all I want is for you to assure me that it is.

"You can…" she tries again, but then she hears running and her name being called.

While she turns her head to see Alex running up to them, with Tim and Barbara in tow, Jack turns to his staff, willing it to become part of the snow once again. It obeys his command and sinks into the ground, waiting to be called upon again.

Tim runs up to her. "Sky, what's the matter?" he asks her.

She takes a few deep breaths, but finds nothing to say. "Someone tried to attack her, but retreated soon enough." Jack supplies for her.

Barbara looks at him quizzically. "And just what are you doing here?" she asks.

"I heard noises and came to check it out." He says. "When I came out she was like this."

Raising an eyebrow at him, she turns back to help Skylar up. While they take her a little way away to have a hushed conversation, she looks over her shoulder at him, and he sends a silent message to her, asking her not to tell them. She sends a silent message back, your secret's safe with me.

Alex places a hand on his shoulder and takes him away to talk and thank him. Skylar turns back to the two worried Bats standing in front of her.

"We received a distress signal from your comm." Tim explains. "But did you send it late?"

She silently nods. "Now why would you do that?" Barbara asks. "You know your brother sent you with instructions to call for help if you were in trouble."

"I guess…I thought I could take them on my own." She says, rubbing her arms a bit nervously. "And I did. I didn't need help this time."

"Hm hmm." Barbara hummed. "Look, you were lucky Jack found you before you could get yourself into any more trouble."

"Yeah." She says, looking over her shoulder at the place where she had last seen the staff to find that it was now gone. "Lucky."

He leans against his staff with his eyes glued to the globe, trying to ignore his friends as they pace around the room.

"You let her see you?" North asks, for the hundredth time.

Jack sighs. "No. She didn't see my true form." He says. "She just saw me holding my staff and blasting Pitch with ice."

"But she still saw you." Bunny points out. "That was irresponsible, mate."

"Look, I did what I had to." Jack says, pointing his staff at Bunny. "She was in trouble and I did what I was meant to do." He puts his staff down and runs a hand through his hair. "Look, Pitch specifically targeted her for some reason. He actually claimed her. What else was I supposed to do?"

Tooth followed his movements, a look of sympathy in her eyes. "Jack, we know you did what you could, but the fact remains, Pitch is striking. We need you sharp and focused."

He looks up. "What're you trying to say?" he asks.

Tooth puts a hand on his shoulder. "I'm trying to say, we can't afford to make any mistakes just because we got too attached to a mortal." His eyes widen as he soaks in the meaning of her words.

"I won't make any mistakes." He says, pushing her hand off. "But I'm going to keep a closer eye on her."

He looks for her all day, but doesn't find her. When he asks Alex, the redhead gives the reply that he didn't find her too. The day goes agonizingly slowly as he tries to concentrate on his lessons, but his mind is focused on her instead.

Lucky for him, he spots her during free period when he was wandering the halls. Or rather, they see each other, and while he moves forward to reach out to her, she moves back and makes to get away. Narrowing his eyes, he stops her from moving away, and before she can say anything, puts a finger to his lips, and drags her into an empty classroom, closing and locking the door behind him. He turns back to her, leaning with his back against the door.

"Okay, now we can talk." He says.

The way she looks at him makes him regret about the way he said it. He should have known by now that she wasn't a person who liked things being defined for her. Like she had once told him, she preferred to do the defining.

"Excuse me?" she crosses her arms over her chest. "But I don't think you have the right to decide what we do and what we don't."

He puts his hands up in defense. "Okay, I'm sorry!" he quickly says. "But you do know we have to talk about it sometime."

"And you choose today to talk about it?" she asks, glaring at him. "Jack, I don't have time for this." She reaches out to undo the clasp of the door, but he stops her.

"Then make time." He says. A moment or two passes like that, with her and him just looking at each other with her hand on the door lock and his hand on her arm. After a few heartbeats, she withdraws her hand, stepping away from the door, and he pulls his hand away.

"Okay," she says, "we can talk."

He heaves a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness." He smiles. "I thought you would just push me out of the way and leave."

She looks at him. "Jack, you know I wouldn't do that."

The way she says it strikes a little nervousness in his heart, and he awkwardly rubs the back of his neck. "Okay, where do we start?"

"First things first." She says. "The Festival."

He sighs. Of course she'd ask about the Festival first. "What do you wanna know?"

"About what you did." She answers. "Look, I don't know what's going on, but I saw what you did, and I want you to tell it to my face."

He takes a deep breath. "Fine," he says in defeat, "But only if you tell me your secret as well."

"What?"

"You heard me. I share my secret, and you share yours."

She looks down. "I've told you before, jack, most of them aren't my secrets to share." But before he can get really down, she looks up again. "But there is a part that is mine and mine alone. I can show you that."

"What do you mean show…?"

Before he can complete, she pushes back the sleeves of her hoodie up to her elbows, revealing two silver arm bands that looked a lot like…

He looks up at her as the realization set in. "Wonder Girl?"

She nods, covering her arms up again. "You see why I couldn't tell you. It wasn't just my secret; it was my mentor's as well."

It takes him a few seconds to process this. "And Alex…?"

"…is one of us." She completes. "But which one, you'll have to ask him yourself. I can't tell you more, since you see how much I've already given out." She straightens up. "Now it's your turn."

"My turn? Oh, right."

He closes his fist, willing the air to cool and condense to form ice inside the closed space. As she watches his action a little endearingly, he opens his palm to reveal a solid white snowflake floating a little above the surface of his hand.

"As you can see, I…I control ice and snow." Okay, it wasn't a total lie.

"You're a meta?" she asks.

He nods. "Yep." He says. "Most of this works better with my staff around. It channelizes my power and makes it easier to control."

"Wish that were the case for all of us." They share a laugh and he can't help but think how happy he is that they've cleared up the air between them. If he was truthful, he missed laughing with her like this, without worrying about anything else.

As they come down from their laughter high, she sticks out her hand. "No more secrets?" she asks.

He smiles and shakes it. "No more secrets." He agrees.

At that very moment, the school bell rings, shattering the moment. She picks up her bag. "I've gotta go to class. See ya."

As she walks out of the door, he just can't help the guilt that was settling in on his heart. Maybe it was the fact that he had agreed that there were no more secrets between them, at least the ones that were theirs, and he was keeping one of the biggest from her, or maybe it was the fact that he had lied straight to her face when he smiled and shook her hand.

"So, you told him about us?" Alex asks.

"Not us. Me. I told him about me." She replies.

"You told him about your brother as well?" he asks.

She shakes her head. "No. Like I told him, it's not my secret to share." She closes her book that lay open in front of her and slides it across the table.

"Good." He says. "Because if Dick ever found out what you did…"

"He won't." She cuts him off. "Living with a Bat has taught me a few things about keeping secrets."

He nods in agreement. Then, he digs inside his bag and pulls out a particular book.

"Hey, isn't that the book you were trying to find?" she asks.

He nods. "I thought you might like to read it." He passes the book over to her. "I know you enjoy reading about mythology and all that. Well, this is about mythology too, except for kids."

She looks down at the cover, and her eyes widen slightly at the title: Jack Frost and Other Tales

A/N: Okay, now this is getting interesting. It's coming closer and closer to the part I imagined when I first thought of this story.

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