HEEEEY. Hi everyone. Gosh I'm DEEPLY SORRY for the lack of chapters, I swear I am. But I've a good reason! You see, in my University, we have partial exams through the months of class, but also we have finals in January, RIGHT AFTER our more-or-less-two-week Christmas break. Which is really damn sad.

The thing is, I've three tests scheduled for next week and a shit ton of work to do during the holidays. So that's why I haven't been writing at all. But I dedicated today to work on this chapter and, well, I'll just say I hope you guys enjoy Jackunzel fluff.

So, yeah, I'm very sorry for keeping you waiting like this. Just know that I have a good reason for it and whenever I have some free time I'll try to write. I can't really guarantee that you'll have a chapter soon, though ;_; But it'll come! PINKY PROMISE!

I hope you will be forgiving about this. Life sucks and then you die, yanno. Now, I hope you like this one, and as always thank you for all the support and, yeah, enjoy!

When their fingertips touched the surface of the box, it was as if a window to a completely new and different world was open, just for their own eyes to see. They sank deeper into the vision, deeper, and deeper.

Jack saw a land covered in forests and snow. A small village with small wooden houses and small, friendly people. He recognized the place, for it was the same place he'd seen for the first time after becoming Jack Frost. It was the first time he realized nobody saw him. The first time people had passed right through him. He remembered it very clearly, and it hurt him so.

But now, he was a mere spectator. A series of visions passed before his eyes. They didn't stay for long, just enough time for him to see and hear, before vanishing and leaving room for the next. He saw a little brown haired and brown eyed child. Is that me? he wondered. The child was peeking over a cradle to get a glimpse of a little baby, who was sleeping inside. "This is your sister, Jack" a woman's voice said, as a hand caressed his brown hair, and the vision vanished.

Then, he saw the brown haired boy had grown, and this time he was certain it was himself. They looked alike. He was in a forest, running ahead of a small girl, who should be his sister, the little baby he'd seen before. He climbed over a tree and, using his knees, swung back and forth on a branch. The little girl was scared at first, but was soon laughing at him. He could catch a glimpse of an older, feminine figure, but the image vanished before he could be sure he even saw it. The next vision showed him holding two reindeer antlers to his head and dancing goofily, while the children around him clapped and laughed. Wow, he thought, children did seem to have fun with him. A series of other images showed him in similar situations, playing with others and having fun with harmless pranks.

However, the next vision was different. "Come on, Jack!" he heard the little girl's voice. She was pulling brown-haired Jack's hand as they got out of a house. That confirmed that she was, in fact, Jack's sister. He heard an older woman's voice clearly. "Be careful" she said, and he chuckled and replied: "We will!" Brown-haired Jack was carrying a pair of ice-skates, which made obvious what he and his sister were going outside for.

But the next thing Jack saw was his sister's terrified face reflected in his brown pupils. Jack had taken off his skates and was trying to reassure her, saying "It's okay! Don't look down, just look at me." The ice beneath the girl's skates was breaking. One false move, and...

"Jack, I'm scared" she whined, not daring to move. "Don't be! You're not gonna fall in. I promise. We're going to have a little fun instead!" he reassured her, slowly moving his foot forward, but the ice cracked where he was stepping. He flinched when he heard the cracking sound. "No, we're not!" the girl replied, her fear showing in her voice. "Would I trick you?" Jack asked, smiling. "Yes, you always play tricks!" "Well, not this time. I promise, you're gonna be fine. You have to believe me." The little girl's eyes were still unsure, but Jack was so convincing, his smile was so contagious, she slowly started smiling. "Wanna play a game? We're gonna play hopscotch! Like we do everyday! Remember?"He got ready to start. His heart beat loudly in his ears, because the ice was still cracking.

"It's as easy as one" he took a step towards a familiarly shaped tree branch laying on solid ice. "Two, three!" with another two steps, he caught the branch in his hands and smiled at his sister, who giggled as well. "Okay, now it's your turn. One" he counted for her. With the girl's steps, the ice cracked under her weight. She gasped. "Two" she took another hesitant, trembling step. The cracking sound made her flinch, but Jack was ready. "Three!" Jack grabbed her body with the branch and threw her back in solid ice, throwing himself forward with the motion. His sister shook her head, getting up, and smiled brightly at him. He got up on his feet and laughed. Everything was okay, Jack thought to himself, relieved.

Or maybe not.

The ice beneath brown-haired Jack's feet suddenly broke down with a loud crack. He gasped, and fell in. "Jack!" was the last thing he heard, his sister's voice, calling his name. And, as he briefly struggled in the piercing cold water, he could see the full white moon. He saw himself, a dead weight sinking in. And then, he heard it. The voice of the Man in the Moon. "I have chosen you, Jack Frost. Wake up."

He saw his own hair turning white, and, when he opened his icy blue eyes, Jack woke up.

While this happened to Jack, Rapunzel was seeing things, too. She was seeing a little brunette, green eyed baby, giggling in the arms of a young woman. A bearded man was beside her, and both of them were wearing crowns on their heads. Their faces were blurry, yet recognizeable. Is that me? And are they... Mom? Dad? Rapunzel wondered. She then saw the little baby held between her parents' arms as they released a lantern into the sky. After it, thousands of other lanterns floated away, and her little eyes observed everything in wonder. "It's for you, Rapunzel" her mother's voice said, and the image vanished. But she had seen the place, and she had recognized it, despite its changing over the years. It was Corona, for sure. That wasn't a place she'd easily forget.

Then, she saw herself, as a brown-haired little girl, running around an enormous castle. Her mother was running after her, and both of them were laughing. The image vanished as others appeared. They were images of her childhood, of her playing with other children, painting, reading, hugging her parents. Afterwards, what she saw was like looking in a mirror. The Rapunzel she was seeing had short, brown hair, but she looked exactly like she did now. "Rapunzel" she heard her mother's voice. "Since you are turning eighteen soon, we decided to hold your coronation on your birthday. From then on, we shall start training you... to become queen." That image dissolved along with the others before she could fully see her shocked face. However, what she saw next was completely different from that.

She was running away from the castle, following a young, strong and quite handsome man. He didn't look much like a knight or a soldier, though. "How much longer do we have to keep running?" she yelled, struggling to keep up with his long strides. "If you want to stop, you could politely ask your guards to stop coming after us!" he replied. That scene soon became another: "I'll let you have the tiara if you take me around my kingdom. That was the deal." brown-haired Rapunzel threatened the man with a frying pan (who knew where she'd gotten that from). "Are you going to break your promise, Flynn Rider?" He sighed in frustration and just a tiny bit of fear when he glanced at the threatening weapon. "Okay, okay. I may be a thief, but I'm not one to break a promise. Since I have a thing for brunettes, I'll even take you on tour in your city after things calm down. Alright?" "That's what I thought" Rapunzel smiled in satisfaction, crossing her arms. After that, a series of images passed before her eyes, almost overlapping each other. Images of her and Flynn avoiding the palace guards, enjoying themselves with some not-so-good-looking-but-nice men, sitting near a bonfire, eating together... as the images went on, she heard their voices. "Why did you even want to run away from your castle, anyway?" Flynn asked. "It's just, I've never seen anything outside the city. I wanted to know the kingdom and the people I will someday be ruling over. I want to know what they want, and what they need. I don't want to be the kind of queen who's oblivious to everything outside her castle." she heard her own voice responding, and then asking: "And you? Why did you become a thief in the first place?" "Well, I'll tell you, my initial plan wasn't like that. I'll save you the story of poor orphan Eugene Fitzherbert..." "Eugene?" "That's my real name, for the record." She heard herself giggle and, in a warm voice, reply: "I like Eugene better." "Well, the thing is, I used to read those stories about some adventurer named Flynn Rider. And of course, I wanted to be like him. But when I ran away from the orphanage, well... things ended up being really different."

Rapunzel remembered the spark of liking she felt towards that man, when they opened up to each other. She remembered how those feelings grew on her through the few weeks they'd been together. She remembered how she thought she could be starting to love him. But, one day, it changed. She heard the little children's screams, she saw the parents crying and mourning and begging, and she saw the house on fire. She saw herself running towards it and Eugene trying to stop her. She entered the house, coughing and blinded because of the smoke. She remembered the heat, the heat... She grabbed the two little crying children and protected them from the flames with her own body. Then, she commanded them to go outside. She was following them, making sure they were okay, sometimes pushing them, and she saw them getting out through the door. However, she couldn't do the same. The ceiling collapsed. She was thrown to the ground, feeling the heat. The heat...

Laying on her back, she could see nothing but the smoke. She felt nothing but the pain, and the heat... "Rapunzel!" she heard Eugene's voice from someplace far away. "Rapunzel!" But she couldn't respond. At that moment, through the smoke, she saw the sun. She didn't feel the pain anymore as she lost her conscience, or rather, died. The heat turned into warmth. The sunlight was getting brighter, and brighter...

Her body was never found in the remains of the burned house. Instead, she found herself in the tower she'd known. The sun rays were shining through the window straight upon her, and one single bright drop of sunlight fell right over her head. She saw her hair turning blond. She saw it glowing as it grew, and grew, and grew... and she heard the voice. She knew it was the Sun. "I have chosen you, Rapunzel. You are the sunlight. Do not get out of this tower. The world is dangerous, and you are not ready... yet. Wake up."

And Rapunzel opened her eyes.

Both of them gasped, their breathing heavy and ragged. Their hearts pounded in their ears. They found themselves back, sitting on the ground, in the middle of the night in the island of Berk. The Guardians were bending over them and asking if they were okay.

"D-did you guys see that?" Jack asked, staring at his own hands in disbelief. He suddenly got up on his feet, and stared at all the Guardians with a spark of happiness in his eyes. "I... I had a sister! And I saved her! That's why...!" he looked at the full moon, shining over the island. "That's why you chose me" he then looked back at the rest of the Guardians with a confident, bright smile on his face. "I'm a Guardian."

The others smiled back at him and cheered; those words lifted their hearts, knowing they would have another person to help them take care of the children and bring them joy. Jack had finally found himself and he finally knew what he was there for; he simply knew his fate was to be a Guardian.

He was overjoyed, of course. He looked at Rapunzel, expecting to see the joy on her face, too, but all he saw was a expression of shock as she looked at the ground, as if she was trying to decypher all the secrets it held.

"Rapunzel?" he called, lifting her chin with his hand. "What's wrong?"

"I... I am the princess" she muttered, so low that Jack couldn't hear her at first. But her eyes looked into his as the realization sank in. "I am the princess of Corona!" she repeated, this time aloud. Everyone else looked at her with a puzzled expression, but Jack and North both gasped.

"You mean you're the princess? The one those little children talked about back in Corona? The one who was...?" he found himself unable to say the word dead. After all, he himself was kind of dead too. He still had to get used to the idea, though.

Of course, Rapunzel had heard Jack's questions, but she was too busy being shocked. She ran her fingers through her hair, breathing deeply. It was too much to take in, too difficult to accept it all of a sudden, and her brain was still trying to process it. "I... I was born in the castle. I saw it" that wasn't really an answer, but it'd have to work. "It was Corona. And my parents..." she paused, her eyes wide open, staring into thin air. "My parents..."

"You saw them?" Jack asked, trying to repress the spark of jealousy igniting beneath his chest. He couldn't see his parents... he only got to hear his mother's voice. But that wasn't Rapunzel's fault, and he tried his best to supress the jealousy.

"I didn't... see them clearly. Their faces were blurred, but..." she finally looked back at Jack, and that was when he saw the facts slowly sinking in, in the way her eyes opened and her pupils widened as if she had descovered the secrets of the universe. "They were my parents, Jack. They were the king and the queen. I'm positive."

"Wow" he breathed, still stunned. The Guardians were equally astonished by her words.

"Who would've guessed?" North commented, rubbing the back of his head. "Looks like we have a member of royalty among us!"

"But there's more" Rapunzel interrupted, without averting her eyes from Jack. He noticed her green orbs saddening, as if the shimmer of light inside them was downed, almost gone. "I... I found out how I... how I died" she found it hard to say the word, as if it got stuck in her throat and didn't want to come out. Your own death is something very hard to accept, mind you. Jack knew how she felt at that moment, obviously, and he put an arm around her shoulders in an attempt to comfort her, careful not to throw Pascal off his spot on her right shoulder.

"You don't have to tell us if you don't want to, you know."

"But I do" she swallowed the knot in her throat and told them about the fire and the children. Their faces were shocked and their eyes filled with compassion and empathy. However, she didn't tell them about Flynn; she still needed to wrap her mind around that topic, and she was unsure if she even wanted to know about him herself, because... well, her memories had brought feelings back to her. Feelings that were confusing, and messing with her feelings about Jack. So, she didn't want to touch the topic for now. Not in front of that many people, at least.

"Rapunzel, I'm very sorry that you had to recall those unpleasant memories" North said, lightly caressing her cheek in a paternal gesture. Rapunzel faintly smiled at him, the natural spark in her eyes still off. "But, if that's really what happened to you, then I believe you already know why the Moon chose you to be a Guardian."

"The Moon might've chosen her to be a Guardian, but she said she saw the Sun" Tooth replied. "That means that... the one who gave her a new life was actually the Sun."

Rapunzel didn't know what to reply to that. She was still shocked by everything, but she was certain that Tooth was right. She'd seen the Sun, and heard its voice.

"How is that?" Jack asked, weirded out. "I thought there was no 'Man in the Sun'?"

"There is" North replied, thoughtfully stroking his beard. "But he rarely ever shows he's still there. He has enough work keeping Earth warm enough at all times, he hardly ever minds human people's business" he then looked at Rapunzel with thoughtful eyes. "There must be something really special about Rapunzel to have attracted his attention."

"That explains why her power is light-based" Bunny reflected, and Sandy showed his agreement by nodding his head.

"Then, that must be why people can see me" Rapunzel muttered, now thinking it through herself. Both Toothiana and North nodded to that.

"Yes. According to your explanation, the Sun has dropped a single drop of sunlight upon you, and it is hard for sunlight to go unnoticed" the bearded man stated.

"The sunlight is inside you, Rapunzel, and it makes people notice your presence and see you even when you wouldn't be supposed to be seen by non-believers" Toothiana clarified, smiling at her empathically.

"Now that explains a lot of things" Jack sighed, running a hand through his white hair.

"Rapunzel" North intervened again with a serious expression, and the blonde looked back at him in curiosity. "I would like you to think of becoming a Guardian. It is obvious that you are willing to protect the children, and I figure you would like to spend time with Jack, and hopefully, with us, too" his serious expression became a warming, welcoming smile. "We'd just like you to think about it, if it's alright with you."

Rapunzel paused for a moment, averting her eyes from them for a few seconds, but she was smiling lightly when she put her green eyes back on them. "I-I don't know about it, but... I will think it through. I promise."

The Guardians smiled in satisfaction and agreed it was time for them to go. North gave them one of his portal orbs so they could go see them whenever they felt ready to become Guardians, and they all got back up on North's sleigh and disappeared into the night sky.

Rapunzel then sighed, letting her hands run a good while through her blonde, very long hair. Jack couldn't decypher her expression, which was curious because she was often very bad at hiding how she felt. But she was probably just confused, trying to get all those new things to sink in. His mind was quite a blur as well, to be honest, but he was so glad to have seen all of it, even if it involved his own death. It made him realize just how much he wanted to be believed in and just how much he was willing to do to protect the children however he could. Of course, it also made him realize that there was really a reason for the Moon to have chosen him. He wasn't just a random one. It was his fate.

However, Rapunzel didn't seem to have taken it as nicely as he did. Maybe it was too much of a shock for her, or maybe she saw something she didn't want to see. He wouldn't know, and he wouldn't force her to tell him. Knowing her, it was probably better to just try to lighten her up. She was not a person to be sad and down. It didn't suit her, and he hated to see the natural spark in her eyes fade away. As the Guardians had just said, she was the sunlight, and one shouldn't let the sunlight ever feel sad.

"So" he said, casually playing with some snowflakes in his hand. "I'm in love with a princess, who was chosen by the Sun, and also chosen to become a Guardian. How demanded you are" that, thankfully, made her giggle. He smiled, cheered on by the success of his attempt. "Should I start calling you Your Majesty? No, that would be for a queen. What's the right title, again? Gracious Princess of the Glowy Pretty Hair and the Stupendous Lizard?"

Now that made her laugh out loud (even though Pascal glanced at him in annoyance for the irony. What a clever little bud). Jack's smile became wider, satisfied with the results.

"It's so weird to think of me as a princess, isn't it?" she smiled back at him, her eyes a little unsure.

Not as weird as it was difficult, he thought. Indeed, it was difficult for Jack to get used to thinking of Rapunzel as a princess. Even so, somehow, it suited her. Maybe it was the way she would majestically straighten her back and stand up before others when she wanted to make herself known, while her eyebrows slightly furrowed and her eyes would stare down at the other in a nonchalant, magnificent way; or maybe it was how she crossed her arms, with that majestic yet slightly pretentious expression on her face, and tell them how she had been right all along. He couldn't put his finger on what exactly made him think of her like that, but she'd always had this sort of royalty aura around her, with those delicate gestures and manners.

"Nah. Honestly, you've always looked like a princess to me" he smiled, a crooked, cocky, naughty smile. Rapunzel's favorite.

"Ah. That's just the kind of thing a player like you would say" she replied in a playful tone, her mind driven away from any sad or difficult thoughts. Not even the memory of that Flynn she'd apparently loved before could get in between right now. She could never resist Jack when he was in that joking, playful mode. Which was most of the time, honestly.

"Oh my, I'm offended, Your Majesty!" Jack put a hand to his chest in a very dignified and aggravated manner. "To know that you would think so lowly of me breaks my poor peasant heart."

"I'm sure your heart is much stronger than that, mister peasant" that playful, clever, mischievous little smile curving her lips in such an appetizing way could drive him crazy.

"My heart is always weak when it comes to you, Princess" he responded, letting a hint of how much he actually meant and felt the words slip into the joking tone of his voice. Rapunzel blushed, because the sentence was smooth enough to blush by itself, and because she'd gotten that little hint.

How could she not notice, really? Whenever they were together like this, he completely attracted all of her senses, as if he was a magnet. She paid attention to every single detail, and it only felt natural to do so. She realized how he would run a hand through his hair from time to time for no real reason, and how his eyes would furrow a little when he was deep in thought; she noticed the many faucets of his many smiles, and she loved the way he never gave a straight smile because his lips would always curve towards one side; she saw how he would come closer towards her, ever so slightly, whenever he wanted to kiss her, and how he liked to touch her face because he knew she wouldn't flinch because of his cold hands.

She noticed everything, and loved it all.

"Maybe we shouldn't get so close, then" she murmured, seeing how his body had leaned in closer to her. "If I'm a weakness for you, that is."

"I'm afraid you didn't get the idea, princess" he replied, bringing her face close to his with one hand and burying his fingers into her blond hair with the other. His crooked smile made her heart skip a beat. "My heart is weak for you, but you're what makes me the strongest."

"You're such a smooth talker" her voice was a charmed, joyful whisper as her hands brought him closer for the kiss.