Chapter Summary: Jamie has always loved the depths of winter, the way the snow eats away at sound and sight and emotion. Some days, the peace and quiet of it calls to him.
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Deep Snow
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Whenever Jamie is woken in the early hours of the morning, his mind flies back in time by decades. "Go watch cartoons, Etta—Ro?—whoever," he groans, rolling away from the hand shaking his shoulder. "We'll be up in a little while."
"Jamie, no—it's Jack. Wake up! This is definitely the best snow I've done so far in Pennsylvania; you have to come out and see it!"
Slowly, Jamie cracks his eyes open. The room is too dark to make anything out, and the house is still and silent. Pippa's body heat warms his side, but her heart medications always knock her out. Jack could probably deposit their own personal blizzard inside the house, and she wouldn't wake for hours.
"Jack?" he yawns blearily, pulling the heavy blankets up to his chin. "Wha'time is it?"
Even in the darkness, he can make out the gleam of his friend's grin. "It's morning! Get dressed, okay? Let's go outside so you can see it; it's seriously—"
"You always think every snow is the best one you've ever done, Jack," Jamie says, smiling as he burrows deeper into his pillows.
"But this one really could be, I think. It's the powder snow; I set it down in more layers this time, and it's so much smoother."
Jamie nods patiently. "If I go outside, am I going to be able to see anything new for me personally because if you remember, I'm but a mere mortal and can't see all the snow stuff you can."
The frost spirit rolls his eyes. "Probably not."
"Exactly. Like every other time. So—"
"C'mon, don't close your eyes, Jamie!"
"—I love snow as much as the next guy whose best friend is the personification of winter, but wake me up in about…" with great effort, Jamie rolls over to see the clock and pries his eyes back open to look. "Jesus, Jack, it's five in the morning."
Jack sheepishly rubs his chin. "Oops? But it is morning."
Jamie watches the corners of his mouth twitch upward. He rolls back over in bed. "Wake me up at a normal, human hour."
"Jamie," Jack whines. "You're an old fogey now, but that doesn't mean that I won't throw a snowball at your head."
"You wouldn't while I'm in bed," Jamie replies without opening his eyes. He knows this to be true, but his friend still takes a minute to consider it.
"Okay, you're right," he finally admits. "But—"
"Stop pouting. Go wake the Madisons," he orders, naming the children from the next house over. "You all looked like you had a lot of fun the other day."
"Yeah, but Audra tried to eat my hair," Jack retorts mulishly.
"Jack," Jamie moans.
"Fine, fine. But if you're not up and dressed by nine, I'll put snow down your PJs, and see if I don't."
Jamie hears Jack leave through the window in the hallway, and then sleep takes him again.
.
Truth be told, at the age of eighty-nine, Jamie's a little too old to be out in the snow for any extended period of time. Playing outside is usually out of the question, as the cold gnaws at Jamie's bones and skin more than it ever did in his youth. He knows that Jack understands this, because the frost spirit rarely opens a window when Jamie is in the room, and he reins in his natural chill as much as possible whenever they're together. Jamie knows Jack doesn't really like to do the latter, but he always brushes off Jamie's apologies with a grin. Jamie appreciates the gesture anyway.
After some time, Jamie wakes gradually to the sounds of Jack and Audra at play. He groggily pulls himself from bed. Pippa is humming in the kitchen downstairs. Rubbing his eyes, Jamie leans heavily on his cane and stumbles into the study.
His writing desk waits for him, strewn with an array of papers. His laptop is buried somewhere underneath them all, but he leans over it gingerly to inspect Jack's newest masterpiece through the window.
Snow blankets the sloping land outside the glass, settling across trees or dripping from branches in slick icicles. Jack's powder snow has already been disturbed by trailing footprints; he and the dark-haired Audra Madison chase each other through the gleaming white.
Jamie loves the deep of winter, the heavy snows that begin a new year. They erase everything, quiet everything, brighten everything. All of the mud and blighted grass and withered trees become beautiful and clean. The snowflakes filter something in the air, and the wind brings Jack home to stay.
It's not yet eight o' clock, so instead of dressing, he settles down to write. Snowy days are best for this, because his memories of his youth with Jack seem freshest in clean snow. The ending to the recent stories of Jack's dealings with the leprechauns has been fluttering around Jamie's dreams all night, and his fingers itch to get it down.
Of course, the success of the book series is a pretty good motivator for writing as well. Jamie's stories of Jack Frost have sold well all across the Northeast and are spreading slowly across the country. Thom, his grandson, is even talking on his behalf with a European publisher.
Jamie loses track of time in the words and their order, which flood everything else from his mind. When the silence of the room is eventually broken by a tap at the window at his right, he jumps and looks up. Jack's head is visible through the glass, his eyebrows raised in expectation. Mischievously, Jamie clasps a hand to his chest and staggers slightly in his chair.
"Ha, ha, Fred Sanford," Jack replies flatly, his voice muted by the pane. He slides the window open, jumps in quickly, and shuts it behind him. "You're terrible, you know that?"
"Learned from the best," Jamie responds, looking at the time. It's half past ten, and considering Jack's low levels of patience, it's a wonder he waited so long to interrupt. The frost spirit makes no move to drag Jamie outside, though. He seems to understand that if Jamie felt up to wandering in the snow today, he would have dressed for it already. Instead, Jack gracefully perches on the end of the desk, settling cross-legged on the wood.
"So. What's today's story?" he asks, cocking his head.
"Just finished that one with the leprechauns trying to force you to wear shoes," he reports. Jack's nose wrinkles in distaste at the memory. "Got any new ones for me?"
"Um…" The frost spirit rests his chin on his hands. "Not recently…oh! How about—North threw a New Year's party yesterday and we met Baby New Year. Me and the Guardians, I mean."
"There's actually a real Baby New Year?" Jamie asks, coughing in laughter.
Jack grins as well. "He's kind of a recent thing, I guess. You know, he's been in so many movies and newspapers and stuff that people started believing in him."
"Alright," Jamie manages, curious. "What happened?"
Usually, Jamie asks Jack to tell him a story in its entirety once or twice before he writes it down. That way, Jamie can get a better idea of the story's flow, and he can tell which parts Jack thinks are important: the frost spirit waves his arms or paces the room or otherwise signals where the drama lies. Sometimes, he is so animated that Jamie wishes he could just film him telling the story and show that to children instead.
Today, Jack complies with Jamie's demand, explaining how the New Year's Baby had shown up a little past midnight, how he appeared as a bubbly and talkative toddler, how Jack and Bunny had lost him in the workshop, how the baby had reappeared laughing and unhurt after hours of searching. "Turns out that he looks like a baby but is almost a hundred years old," Jack grumbles. "He laughed himself half to death over the looks on our faces. If he wasn't so adorable, I could've killed him."
Jamie laughs, but he stops short at Jack's impish grin.
"Maybe you could change the last part of the story this time?" Jack asks, waggling his eyebrows. "Instead of me wishing I could've killed him, I could tie him up and give him back to Father Time. Or feed him to a whale."
Jamie laughs again. "What did you really do to him?"
"Nothing," Jack admits, stretching his legs. "I guess it was kind of funny, so we just let him go and told him he could come back next year."
"That's the best part," Jamie nods slowly. "That you do things like that."
The frost spirit rolls his eyes. "It would be cooler my way."
"Nope," Jamie replies firmly, still smiling. "This is why you can't write the books."
"Jerk," Jack responds, gently nudging Jamie's shoulder. "Are you going to write it now?"
Jamie coughs. "No. I have to think it over. Tell it to me again this evening?"
"Okay," Jack agrees. "Maybe I could figure out what Sandy and the others were up to. They were supposed to be searching North's quarters," he clarifies. "Apparently, North was convinced New Year must have gotten outside, so he went out in the snow and came back with his beard all frozen."
Jamie grins and tries to imagine it, the ice covering North's snowy white hair, but he only comes up with a generic mental image of Santa Claus. Similarly, Tooth is the vague impression of a hummingbird, Sandy a golden puppet-like doll, and Bunny more of a kangaroo than a rabbit. "It's hard to picture that," Jamie says slowly. "To picture any of them. It's hard to picture their faces sometimes."
Jack pauses, curious. "What do you mean?"
"I guess it's been a while since I've seen any of them."
"But you saw us for Christ—no, we didn't come this Christmas, did we…but we were all here for Easter, remember? Bunny wanted to make a good holiday for the newest Bennetts," he says, referring to Blake's one-year-old twins, Jamie's only great-grandchildren. He frowns at the blank expression on Jamie's face. "You don't remember?"
"No, I remember it happening," Jamie replies, "but their faces are blurry, that's all."
Jack frowns. "It hasn't even been a year."
"I know. It's—more than that," Jamie confesses, wishing he hadn't brought the subject up. "It's harder to believe in the other guardians sometimes. They seem too fantastic. I think maybe…I think I only really believe in them because of you and your stories. And whenever they're here, of course."
Jack is quiet for a long time. "What about me?" he asks uncertainly. "Is it ever hard to believe in me?"
Jamie meets his eyes. "Never," he promises.
The frost spirit stares, and the worried furrow in his brow eventually drains away. "Alright," he replies, exhaling slowly. "I think I can live with that."
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Jamie's cough becomes a wet and sticky burr that he can't scrape from his chest. As he and Pippa spend the rest of their lazy morning reading the paper and watching game show reruns, he suppresses it as much as he can.
Pippa isn't fooled. Halfway through Wheel of Fortune, she pushes herself slowly toward him, tugging the newspaper down to press one weathered hand to his forehead. "Jamie, you have a fever," she declares patiently. "I can feel it from over here."
"It's fine," Jamie replies stubbornly. "Just a cold. I've been coughing since yesterday." Also, if Pippa hovers over him all afternoon and evening, Jack might not get a chance to retell his story.
She presses her bifocals up to the brim of her nose. "Jamie."
"Pippa," he replies, smiling.
Amused, she draws away. "Alright. I'll make you some soup. Tomato. And you'll eat it all. And you better have taken your meds today."
Jamie smiles. "Yes, ma'am."
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In the afternoon, Pippa wakes Jamie from his nap. He is stretched across the sofa, dreaming of fires in the veldt of Africa, and the sudden return to the chilly living room jars him.
"Let's go," Pippa says shortly. She is clutching her purse and car keys. "You're burning up. I don't like it."
"Pippa, you do this every time," Jamie responds, sitting up. The room weaves in a chemical haze like a heat wave in the desert. He blinks hard. "The hospital can't be the first response to everything. And this is nothing. A cold."
"They don't mind; I've still got friends there," she frowns. When he sighs and makes no move to stand, she whacks his shoulder with her bag. "Let's go."
Jamie mutters something about domestic abuse under his breath, but he stands obediently and tries to keep his legs from wobbling. Pippa's gaze is watchful, and he doesn't want to give her any more ammunition than she already has.
It doesn't help that he ends up coughing hard enough to nearly hack out a lung after he collapses into the car seat.
"It's probably pneumonia," Pippa predicts, smiling as Jamie looks at the mucus in his palm with disgust. "Only you could end up getting it so quickly. I'll have to tell the girls to come visit next weekend instead."
Great, more people I won't get to see, Jamie thinks, hoping Jack won't be too put out when Jamie stands him up this evening.
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It's pneumonia.
Jamie rolls his eyes at Pippa's triumphant expression when the doctor announces the result and his decision to keep Jamie at the hospital overnight.
Hopefully, Jack's not worried that I'm not there, Jamie thinks as he settles into the lumpy hospital bed. The room reminds him uncomfortably of the one Etta spent time in when she was very young, except that they have rolled in an extra bed for Pippa to stay at her husband's side. Now, she spreads the hospital paperwork across it, looking over lists of immunizations and medications and mumbling to herself as she squints through her glasses.
Jamie's slept enough today to last him the rest of the week, but he still finds himself dozing off, lulled by the humming machines in the sterile environment.
Later, a faint noise wakes him. He cracks his eyes open. The evening light is purple outside the hospital window. Pippa snores quietly in the other bed, having apparently finished the paperwork and found a thicker blanket to cover Jamie with. His chest is oddly tight, his thoughts dazed and feeble, and he finds it hard to move, as if his limbs aren't properly tethered to his body, aren't responding to his brain.
His mind works overtime, though. A heavy, certain weight has settled over him, fear striking him deep in his core. Oh, he thinks, sluggishly reaching for his glasses and turning his head to Pippa. His wife is wrapped in thin blankets that stretch up to her chin, the scar on her cheek striking in the fluorescent light spilling from the crack in the door to the hall.
The noise comes again. Jamie turns slowly and with great effort to face the window. Jack is outside of it, his face wary. He taps the glass again and gestures to the bottom of the frame. The hospital window is locked. Jamie is struck by the impossibility of the situation: he feels he could no more struggle out of the bed to unlock the window than he could sprout wings and fly. But he's afraid, and he needs Jack desperately.
It is a very slow process, forcing his hands to grip the bed, to push his torso upright. He pivots to touch his feet to the floor and falteringly grasps his cane. Once he manages to pull himself up, he wobbles erratically, with short pauses to catch his breath before weakly lumbering forward again. He leans heavily on the window when he reaches it, his fingers fumbling with the clasp before he can pry it open. The second he does, Jack thrusts the pane up the rest of the way and flits inside.
"Geez, Jamie, you look horrible!" he says, brow furrowed in concern. He grabs Jamie's arm to steady him and closes the window with his other hand. "Here, let's get you back to the bed, okay?"
If Jack has to half-carry him to the bed, Jamie can't find the mental space to care. He is too busy reeling over his body's deterioration, his thoughts warped and uncertain with the exception of one surety. As Jack helps him to lie back down, Jamie thinks that this is nothing he should burden the Guardian with, that the knowledge will only hurt him. Except that Jamie has to tell someone, and he doesn't think he can handle this on his own.
The frost spirit pulls Jamie's blankets over him. "Jack, I feel really bad," Jamie blurts thickly. The frost spirit's hands pause.
"Of course you do; you're in the freaking hospital," he replies soothingly. He smiles. "But we've got to stop meeting like this. Between you and Pippa, this is like the fifth time in two years. Or maybe Pippa's getting a little too…" he rolls his eyes affectionately, unable to come up with a word. "I don't even worry when I can't find you guys anymore. I just head here."
"Jack, I feel really bad," Jamie repeats. He tries to find a way to describe it, to explain the disconnect he feels with his body, the slow, almost negligible corrosion of his senses, as if he is sinking underwater. "It's like my body is shutting down."
Jack frowns suspiciously. "What's that supposed to mean? What are you in for? Is it lung problems again?"
"Pneumonia," Jamie wheezes.
"That's all? You'll be fine. You're just overreacting."
"No. This is something else, not just pneumonia. It's worse. I think I'm—" he swallows. Jack's eyes are wide. "I think I'm dying."
Jack blinks. "You are not dying. Don't be stupid."
"Jack," he coughs. "I can feel it. I'm…I don't know. It's like I'm turning off. I don't know how I can tell, but I just…know."
"You are not dying." And then, "Why would you say that?"
Jamie takes a second to weigh the pressure on his chest, the steady slowing of his body, the curbing of his energy, all of his systems stuttering like a machine low on power. "I…just know." He laughs hollowly, and all of his nascent fears come spilling out. "I…what do I do? What do I…? I feel like I've spent all this time preparing for this, you know? Pip and I have had our wills ready for ages, we've got insurance, everything's taken care of, and I've always said I've lived a good life, but when it comes down to it, I'm—I'm afraid to leave," he whispers. "I really am. I'm afraid to die. And there's so much I want to do still, and there's so much I'll miss—maybe, if I can miss anything at all when I'm gone. And—I don't know what will happen. I think that's the worst of it. I don't know. I don't know."
He looks up at his best friend, who couldn't look worse if Jamie had stabbed him in the gut. Jamie's pretty sure his own expression is just as stricken; it's one thing to realize what is happening and another to actually listen to the confirmation spilling from his mouth. He's not sure when it happened, but the frost spirit is clenching his hand as though afraid Jamie will leave him in that instant if he lets go. Jamie's skin is on fire, and Jack's chill feels soothing in his panic.
Maybe it's unfair of Jamie to do this, to say all of this to Jack. But Jack is more than his best friend; Jack is a Guardian. Jamie has always depended on him for superhuman strength, for his ability to take Jamie's fears away, and he needs it now. One more time. Maybe one last time.
"Jack," he confesses, "I'm scared."
Jack's eyes squeeze shut for a moment. Jamie knows without a doubt that the frost spirit will do what he always does when Jamie's afraid: he'll put Jamie's needs before his own. Right now, that includes hiding his own worry and fright so he can shoulder Jamie's burdens, become Jamie's strength. Jack has always come through for Jamie, and now that fear courses through Jamie veins and overwhelms his mind, he needs his friend more than ever.
It's incredibly selfish of him. Jack must know that, must know what Jamie is asking of him. Jamie worries for a second that Jack will resent him, wonders what the frost spirit will think. But when Jack looks at him again, there is a rare, open quality in his blue eyes. There's so much there, so many indistinct emotions and so much warmth, that Jamie almost feels bowled over.
"I understand," Jack replies, but what he understands is unclear. He offers a watery smile. "It's gonna be okay, Jamie. Promise." The Guardian takes a deep, steadying breath. "Besides, there's no guarantee you're—I'm sure you're just…sick. And you're burning up, Jamie, so I'm sure this is all in your head. Everything's gonna be fine." Jack doesn't look very certain about that, though. He pauses, covering up a sniffle. "But just in case, maybe we should seriously talk about that addendum you were gonna put on your will a few months ago, remember?" At Jamie's bewildered look, Jack smiles. "You know. Cremation, and then you were gonna have your ashes taken up into space and scattered over the moon…or actually, we couldn't decide if it was better to put them into fireworks and blow them off all at once."
Jamie's laughter rips out of him. "I forgot about that," he says, surprised.
"I'm still all for fireworks. I mean, you can literally say you went out with a bang. Or maybe an active volcano would be cool, too?"
The laughter turns back into coughing at that. Fatigue weighs down on Jamie, and before Jack's expression can shift back to worry, he asks, "Tell me a story? I meant to hear the one from earlier again, but—I don't have anything to write it down with. Tell me another one?"
"Okay, Jamie," Jack smiles. He squeezes Jamie's hand, staring at the wall in thought for a moment. "Alright. Here goes: once upon a time, there was a frost spirit named Jack. This frost spirit was pretty much the coolest spirit ever (pun intended) and he had a really awesome best friend named Jamie. Now at the time of the story, Jamie was—…um, I think you were eleven or twelve, I dunno. But anyway, Jack came to visit Jamie in Burgess, and it was just like any other year. The snow was already laid down across the entire town, and it was the fresh kind, ready and waiting for people to play in it, the kind where you maybe stop just before you sink your feet into it, just so the smoothness can last for just a few more seconds. Jack wanted to play, so he went to find Jamie, who was shoveling snow from his front walkway, and Jack pelted this snowball at the back of his head—just to say hello, you know?—but he didn't realize that Jamie was waiting for it and ready to retaliate…"
Vaguely, Jamie can remember the story, but pieces of it have slowly slipped from his mind over time. The present fog in his mind makes it hard to focus on the words. Eventually, the frost spirit begins to blur, and Jamie dozes off.
"Go to sleep, kiddo," Jack murmurs fondly from somewhere miles above him. "I'll be here when you wake up."
Jamie is somewhere between sleeping and waking when the hand that clenches his begins to shake, and Jack presses his face into the mattress at his side.
.
The next day is a haze of heat and delirium. Nurses poke and prod him, occasionally coercing him into sitting upright or swallowing medications or holding out his arm for injections. Pippa hovers at his edge of vision, chattering blithely about her old friends and rattling off a running commentary on the crappy daytime television shows. She tries to make him eat, but his insides are trying to make their way out, and he can't keep anything down.
Jack is a constant figure in the room, having planted himself onto the lumpy sofa beneath the window. He watches the nurses with guarded mistrust that melts into a smile whenever Jamie looks his way. Contrary to the frost spirit's customary practices nowadays, he's obviously not draining his chill from the air anymore: the window, patterned with swirls of fern frost, is open a crack, and the gentle breeze eats away at Jamie's fever.
Jamie debates whether to tell Pippa what he told Jack. His body doesn't feel any better than it did yesterday, but it doesn't keep him from regretting the hasty way he blurted everything out to his friend last night. The frost spirit looks haggard and drawn in the light of day, and Jamie wonders if he slept at all. And if Jack's right, and it's all in his head…
Still, it takes too much energy to worry about it. In a rare moment of coherency, he tries to explain it to her, explain the way his limbs are disconnecting and his blood is slowing in his veins. But Pippa has made a living in the science of health, and in this domain, none of Jamie's feelings are as real to her as the readings on his charts.
"You're a poster child for a normal run of pneumonia," she retorts, sweeping sweaty hair from his forehead. "I know it feels horrible, but you should be fine to come home by tomorrow."
In the end, that's the difference between Pippa and Jack, isn't it? Jamie thinks sluggishly. Jack believes it all, and he knows you can't brush off something that's impossible. But Pippa's lost that. She knows only what her eyes can tell her.
At any rate, Jamie's too tired to argue. Jack watches from the window seat. Jamie can't decide whether the spirit looks relieved or worried.
.
He wakes in the afternoon without remembering having fallen asleep. It feels like he's been here for days.
The television is off and Pippa is gone, probably out to annoy the doctors again. Listlessly, he puts his glasses on and turns to find Jack asleep at his side. The frost spirit is snoring lightly, his head resting on his arms and his mouth half-open.
"Jack is very worried about you," says a familiar voice. "He is not sleeping much." Jamie looks up. North is seated a few feet away in a plush red armchair Jamie is certain wasn't there earlier. The Guardian of Wonder looks exhausted; his movements are stiff and slow, and his eyelids droop. Even so, he beams at Jamie, standing to pull the chair closer. "It has been many months, Jamie. Is good to see you again."
"You too," Jamie rasps, struggling a little to sit. North presses a gentle hand onto his shoulder, and he stills. "You're usually resting from Christmas still at this time of year, aren't you? Did Jack ask you to come here?"
"Not exactly," North replies, settling back into the armchair, which is now near the head of Jamie's bed. "He caught one of Tooth's fairies during delivery to send us message, but Tooth could not come herself. Jack said that you were not well. It is very serious?" His eyebrows climb up his forehead.
"It's pneumonia, the doctors said. But…"
"But you do not believe that is all," North finishes. "Jack told me. Before he is falling asleep. He is not sure what to believe. Neither am I. No one is wanting to imagine…"
"I know."
"Are you sure?"
It's easier to answer that now. Jamie nods.
North exhales slowly. "It is a hard thing," he says uncertainly.
Jamie snorts. "Tell me about it."
The Guardian offers a weak smile. He looks as tired as Jamie feels. "We…the Guardians and I, of course…do not have very much experience with old age. With death," he adds quietly. "We are only dealing with children, and…but even so, we are at your service, Jamie. I do not know what you are needing or what to do for you, but if there is anything you want, you should ask." Like Jack, he grins mischievously and tries a weak attempt at humor. "Is Jack telling you that I was a bandit once upon a time? I can get my hands on anything, I can do anything, and for you? We do not even worry about naughty list."
Jamie can't help but laugh in surprise. To have free rein without fear of the naughty list is an incredible gift coming from Santa Claus himself. Jamie wonders if North has ever offered that one before. "Thanks, North," he replies with genuine warmth.
"Anything! You are very dear to us, you know. It is not often we can be friends with such a human for so long. And we owe you all we have. We would not be here if it weren't for you."
"If it weren't for me and Jack," Jamie corrects. "Without Jack, I wouldn't have…"
North nods. "It is incredible to think the two of you have come so far. You saved the world from Pitch Black once as a child, and you have grown older together. And you, Jamie, have helped Jack to grow. We cannot underestimate that: your stories for your students and your books for the world. Without them, Jack would not be as strong as he is now."
"That went both ways," Jamie wheezes in reply. He frowns suddenly. "Actually, North, there is something you could do."
North sobers. "Yes?"
"Can you just…make sure to look after Jack for me? He and I have talked about this before. Me dying, I mean. But he always kind of tunes me out, and I think it'll still be hard on him. Even if…the truth is, he doesn't need me anymore."
North shakes his head slowly. "You have very low opinion of yourself, Jamie, if you are thinking Jack does not need you."
"No, that's not what I mean," Jamie replies, the wheels beginning to turn in his head, but he finds he cannot explain what he means just yet. "I know he needs me, just…"
He trails off as Pippa totters back into the room. "How are you feeling?" she asks upon seeing him awake. Gingerly, considering her back issues, she bends down to look over his chart again. "I've asked some of the nurses to come check in on you; I think we need to bring your fever down a little more…"
As Pippa mumbles to herself, North regretfully drags himself from his chair and shuffles toward the door. "I suppose it is time for me to be leaving," he says quietly, his blue eyes piercing. "I do not know if we will meet again, Jamie Bennett, but I thank you now for all you have done for us. For Jack." He smiles and squeezes Jamie's shoulder gently. "You have lived a very full life."
Pippa's assembled a small army of nurses to march in after that, and by the time Jamie has the chance to look up again, the Guardian has vanished.
.
The conversation with North eases something in Jamie's mind, but he still feels frightened and oddly hollow, as though something inside of him has drained away, leaving him vulnerable to the overwhelming weight of the coming days. Over time, he realizes that this is not so much a product of his illness as it is his anxiety, the worry of a monumental task left unfinished. Jamie deals with it the way he deals with most of his worries: he calls his girls.
He says nothing to them of his feelings of impending departure, but this is out of pure selfishness. He doesn't want their last discussions to be frantic and worried, and he's not sure he could handle more of the sickly, anxious tone that has already crept into Jack's voice. Instead, he chats with them about nonessentials: Etta's retirement from her graphic design firm, or Rowan's training of her newest puppy. The conversations are simple, just grains of sand atop the pile of all of the other conversations they've had throughout their lives, but they fall at its peak, no different from any other moment in material but somehow more crucial for their timing at the end of Jamie's life.
It's the little things that matter most to Jamie now, Ro's wisp of a laugh and Etta's distracted mutterings. His odd prescience is a blessing: he makes sure his last words to them are "I love you."
Sophie is included in their number. Jamie hasn't seen his sister in person in a few years, but they chat amiably about the California winter and Sophie's adopted children, all of them grown and scattered across the States as well.
When he finally hangs up, the warmth of the conversations remain with him, and his eyes blur. And that's goodbye, Jamie thinks, staring up at the stucco ceiling.
Jack, who made himself scarce during the time he was on the phone, instinctively returns to the room and takes his place at Jamie's side. He mistakes the tears for sadness.
"It's alright, Jamie," he soothes, gently pulling the phone from his friend's weak grasp. "It'll be alright."
Talking has sapped all of Jamie's remaining strength, and he sinks more deeply into his pillows, unable to produce enough energy to remain alert. Jack hovers uncertainly, frowning. His hands twitch at his sides.
He wants to help, Jamie realizes, but he doesn't know how. He can't distract me with fun and games. Not anymore.
"Tell me another story?" he asks through the dry cotton of his mouth. He coughs, and Jack dives for the water at his bedside, holding the straw out for him with a painfully earnest expression. "About when we were younger," he adds finally.
Jack smiles, setting the glass aside. "I can do that," he murmurs, sounding relieved.
Jamie allows the ebb and flow of Jack's story to wash him away.
.
Jack's wind flutters against Jamie's hair when he wakes. Maybe it's from the frost spirit's story, but Jamie dreamt of an open, snowy field and an entire afternoon to play in it, an afternoon spent with old friends and relatives he hasn't seen in decades, and of his mother calling him to the fireside when it is done.
Jack is awake at his side when he finally manages to pry his eyes open. The frost spirit's face is drawn and blank and tired. When he notices Jamie looking, he straightens.
"Hey," he says gently. "How are you feeling?"
Jamie takes account of the heat and wetness clinging to the insides of his lungs, of his struggles for breath, the weight of his bones and his skin and all the other fragments of his body, once obedient, that have joined to fight him now. "Like crap," he replies, rasping.
"I guess that's to be expected," Jack mutters. "The doctors said your fever still hasn't broken."
Jamie grunts faintly in reply. Pippa is asleep in the next bed. It's not just that Jamie's vision has begun to darken; it's also nighttime. The sky outside is a deep black. Jamie's breaths wheeze in the stillness of the room.
Jack fidgets. He bears the same uncertain frown from earlier. Blearily, Jamie looks at him. "Are you okay?" he manages.
The Guardian blinks. "Am I okay? I'm fine." He pauses. "I mean, I'm not fine. But I'm okay."
Jamie stares. "It's just, you look…" he offers a helpless shrug.
Jack runs a hand through his hair. "I…no," he says slowly. "No, I'm not okay. I'm—how could I be okay? How could anyone be okay with this? You're freaking dying." He closes his eyes and puts a hand over his mouth. "I'm sorry."
"What are you sorry for?"
Jack shakes his head miserably.
Jamie pulls the frost spirit's hand down toward the bed. His palm feels very cold against Jamie's fevered skin. "It's gonna be alright, Jack," he says, echoing the Guardian's words from earlier.
Jack laughs hollowly. "You can't say that to me. It'll be alright for you, after—" he swallows, shaking his head again. "But I'll be the one left here. I'll be the one alone. What am I even supposed to do without you? I don't know what I'm supposed to do."
Jamie's breath catches in his throat. "You didn't have me for three hundred years, Jack," he offers weakly.
"Yeah, well, now I know what I was missing out on," Jack replies, giving an awful laugh. "How do I go back to that?"
Jamie stares at him, eyes wide. He has no response, nothing to say and no way to help. They have spoken of this in the past, but now that it's here, he feels useless. Burdensome.
At the look on Jamie's face, Jack shakes his head again, more frantically this time. "Never mind, Jamie," he says sheepishly, drawing away. "I just—I haven't slept much. It's a lot to take in. That's all."
Jamie grabs his sleeve. "Don't, Jack. Earlier, when I said—…I didn't mean for you to stop talking to me. I'd swear to God you were Sandy with all the talking you haven't done over the past two days."
The frost spirit cracks a hesitant smile at that, but it slides away like snowflakes from a windowpane. He opens his mouth and snaps it shut, eyes deep in thought.
If Jamie's going to be saying goodbyes, there's one more he hasn't done. Earlier, he called the girls. Pippa's also one he'd need to speak to, but she is napping in the bed at his side, and he won't disturb her. Besides, he thinks, smiling fondly, there's not much more I can say. She out of anyone has always known how I feel.
Jack does too, but there's a little more that needs saying with him. "Look. Jack," he begins before the frost spirit can decide how to start. "I know you're worrying about me dying, and wondering what things will be like after, and—I've actually been thinking about that. For a while now, a really long while." He eyes Jack suspiciously, coughing. "Buckle up, because you might not like this part."
"Okay," Jack replies warily.
Jamie breathes deeply, preparing his weary lungs for more talking at once than he's done in days. "When we first met, half a million years ago, we were really different. We both were. You were a Guardian who hadn't even learned the ropes yet, and I was just a kid who had no idea what belief could really do for someone like you. But just think of all the stories we've been through, all the stuff we've done. I mean, we've done some crazy stuff, Jack. And it's changed us. You especially."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that in all the years I've known you, you've really grown. Not up, in the normal way, but you've changed. Maybe it's because you've got believers now, or because you've learned more about your place as a Guardian. Your powers. I don't know. Maybe it's all of those things."
Jack shrugs. "Yeah, but all that's because of you."
"Exactly. I think…I realized my purpose a long time ago, even if you didn't really. Or maybe you did and just don't want to think about it. But I'm a…a Guardian of Guardians, or a Guardian of a Guardian, to change a term you once used," he says, smiling. "I'm your First Believer. So my special snowflake superpower is belief." Jamie coughs again, and Jack is so drawn in by the conversation that it takes him a moment to think to grab the water this time. Jamie drinks greedily, gathering his thoughts before he continues. "I could never really stop believing in you, not forever. I think it's…sort of like having training wheels on your bike: no matter what happens, you'll have a steady ride while you practice."
"You're…comparing yourself to training wheels?"
"Hear me out. No matter what happened, no matter how many believers came and went while I was alive, you'd always have me. Your First Believer. I mean, think about it: if the Man in the Moon appointed you as a Guardian and you were too new to have enough believers of your own, you might have faded away. So, voila: he gives you a First Believer, too, just to be sure you stick around for long enough to grow a little. But the thing is…I'm done here. You don't need training wheels anymore, Jack. You're a full-fledged Guardian. Every kid in Pennsylvania knows your name, and you've got believers all over the world. People beg for snow days from you like they beg for presents from North and chocolates from Bunny."
Jack looks as though Jamie has slapped him in the face. "That—doesn't mean I don't need you anymore."
Jamie sighs, his throat closing up. His chest is on fire. "You don't," he says slowly, watching Jack's reaction. "You don't need me anymore. Not like that."
"You know what I mean! Maybe you're my—training wheels, or whatever—but you're my best friend first." He frowns. "I still need you." Jack's eyes are wet. He wipes something away furiously.
"Alright, crybaby," Jamie teases, though his voice wavers, and he doesn't feel that far from it himself.
"Screw you, Jamie," Jack laughs, scrubbing at his cheeks. The movement slows, and Jack swallows. "I've been thinking…" he says slowly, his eyes bright. "I've been thinking that it wouldn't be as bad if I were like Pippa or Etta or Ro. If I were mortal. I mean, we'll all lose you. But—they won't have to lose you for so long, you know? To spend centuries without you will be…" he searches for a word, but comes up with nothing. Suddenly, Jack looks very old and weary in spite of his physical age.
"I'm so sorry, Jack," Jamie whispers softly, blinking hard. "I wish I could change this. I would if I could."
Jack nods slowly. "Same here," he replies, pressing his head into his hands. "Don't think I haven't tried."
Snowflakes fall gently past the window, blanketing and deepening the old snow, covering footprints and tire treads and all of the human disturbances until morning. Jack's fighting back his sorrow if the clenched jaw and fists are anything to go by, but his winter doesn't show it: the snow flurries soothingly against the pane, just the way Jamie likes it.
A shadow near the doorway distracts him. There is a small, square window cut into the room's door, and the fluorescent lights from the hall beam against the skeletal face of a dark-skinned man who watches them from the corner.
Jamie is so surprised that he doesn't immediately react, which is just as well: the man holds a finger to his lips, his sharp cheekbones jutting out as he smiles wryly. Dark, curly hair spills nearly to his shoulders, and his black eyes glitter in the dim room. Jamie has heard enough about this spirit to guess who he is.
Before he can decide what to do, Anubis gestures at Jack and then jerks his head to the door. Jamie stares in blank bewilderment for a moment, but something inside him understands. Anubis means for the frost spirit to leave. It's time.
Jamie looks at his best friend, who seems oddly small in the darkness of the room. To send Jack away would spare him the upset of seeing Jamie taken, but Jack wouldn't take it that way. To the Guardian, it would be a cruel trick, one that Jamie would never have the chance to explain. Jamie looks at Anubis with all of the grit he can muster and shakes his head, wondering what the spirit—or god—of death will make of it.
Anubis only rolls his eyes. "Your choice. I was just trying to get the kid out of the room to let him off the hook," he says, stepping forward. Jack jumps and swears at him. "Nice to see you, too," he adds offhandedly.
"I don't think Jack would have forgiven me for that," Jamie replies, startled at the spirit's casual manner.
"No, he wouldn't have," Jack adds, glaring at Anubis. "He'd have killed you for it."
Anubis lets loose a barking laugh. "I guess I should have known that," he replies. At the sight of Jack, whose fierce anger is tempered by the shadows under his eyes and the hunch to his shoulders, Death slowly sobers. "I've told you not to get too attached, haven't I?" he murmurs quietly, as if Jamie were not there. "It always ends this way. There's no point."
For his part, Jamie has taken the last few moments to look around, to see the light streaming from the doorway, Pippa spilled across the next bed, snow fluttering against the window, all of this with the hungry avarice of one near the grave. When he turns to Jack, the frost spirit is staring back at him. "There is," he counters firmly. "I'd do it over again in a heartbeat."
Anubis rolls his eyes again in a long-suffering manner. "It's your life. But Jack," he adds, "it would be better if you didn't watch. Leave?"
Jack shakes his head at once. As an afterthought, he looks at Jamie.
"Stay." Jamie replies, smiling. The frost spirit smiles warmly in return.
Anubis sighs in exasperation. "You two are really something else. You're strange as hell because he escaped from me a long time ago, but you," he says, frowning at Jamie, "you're just as weird. I've never seen a spirit get so attached to someone. There must be something special about you." He peers at Jamie with clinical curiosity, like someone staring at a beetle pinned beneath a microscope, but the interest dampens in the next instant. "I'm Death, by the way. But I'm sure you've already guessed that. It's nice to finally meet you, Jamie."
"Wish it were under different circumstances," Jamie wheezes.
The spirit of death laughs. "Well, you only believe when it's time." He smiles kindly. "And it is time. Are you ready to go, Jamie?" His expression is gentler than Jamie would have expected.
What a loaded question. Of course he isn't ready to go: there are a million things he wants to see and do and write. But this will always be the case, and there will always be something left behind. Jamie doesn't have ages to live, not like Jack does. He knew there would always be parts of the world left unknown to him. And his body is weary. In spite of all his anxiety and fear, something inside him is warm and settled on the understanding that yes, it's time, and this is for the best.
Jamie looks up at the pair of spirits in the room, Anubis dark and distantly analytical, Jack bright and frightened. To be honest, Jamie is almost more worried about Jack than himself: he's never seen such a pained, heartsick look on the guardian's face before. He reaches a hand out to squeeze Jack's, and the frost spirit latches onto it like a lifeline.
"Yeah," he says finally. "I'm ready."
"Let's be off, then," Anubis replies, holding his hand out to Jamie.
Without letting go of Jack, Jamie takes it. Far away, snow beats against the window.
.
.
.
A/N: No, I didn't warn you about character death. You knew where this was going. I'm sorry. If it helps any, this and the next chapter are the hardest things I've ever written. I don't know why I thought I could do this.
The epilogue is being edited and will be out ASAP. In the meantime, leave a review telling me what a horrible person I am for killing Jamie. :'( Also, I'm super nervous about these last two chapters so any feedback at all would be awesome.
Peace,
ket