The feeling was old, like he'd been here before, but never actually knowing how. It was the ultimate story of his life for the past 300-something years... but Jack just couldn't shake it off this time.

That girl set off some far distant memory, and it made his chest ache inside. The sudden pull, the longing he felt towards her was strong enough to make him go back to that place. The first time he'd gone through this, North stood there listening, his eyes sharpening when Jack mentioned her being so close to Pitch's lair and then her sudden vanishing. And she did vanish... in a burst of shimmering mist out of thin air. The same strange mist that had forced him back as he tried to pull her back by her waist with the crook of his staff. He felt power in the move unlike any other, mysterious and almost unnatural...It came out of nowhere and hit him like a wave. The look on North's face reminded him exactly of what he thought at first as he watched her disappear. But, somehow, Jack still sensed that girl really wasn't as threatening as North might think. Just guarded... afraid.

Jack couldn't place his finger on what she could possibly be, but still, he went on and neared the withering ferns that stood over Pitch's old lair where a broken bed frame once stood, aware of a heavy feeling of oncoming dread. Like a storm of looming darkness waiting to break loose.

An eerie silence still echoed off the thin trees and through the gathering mist, swirling around like something from a fairytale. He didn't like it, but he shook it off and told himself that it was only the shadows getting to him from the night before. "She just had to be here, didn't she?..." he muttered to himself, pausing by the opening of the clearing.

That bared, and blackened spot was nothing but a bad memory. Years ago, he came here, too, in search of his own memories, only to fall prey to Pitch's tricks and lies. Jack Frost was a myth, a legend, existing only to be believed in. Believing only to have a purpose. That reality came crashing down on him again, here in this lair... and it seemed like it still whispered to him in the voices of people from his past. The ones he lost forever.

Somehow, the girl found the lair too, but she wasn't here. Jack tried to remember her face, but it was so dark when he saw her, and she refused to come any closer to him. The few words she had spoken were enough to prove she was young as well, maybe even well around his age. Her soft voice rang in his ears, stirring awake that strange feeling again. I can't get her out of my head. I know her... I have to know her from somewhere.

Then again, Jack had to push away the memory of hostility in her gaze. It was starting to make sense; she'd clearly never seen him before, so she still forced him away like he was truly a threat to her. But then I pulled her back... and she thought I was trying to hurt her. Frustration built up like a blizzard inside as he realized the stupidity of doing that, and the winter sprite glanced wistfully at the blackened spot once more... But the lair was silent.

Jack found himself wandering the woods again, subconsciously taking himself to the pond where his story began. Ice slid across the water as he stepped lightly on a running stream and left a trail of silvery ferns in its wake. He watched the tiny fish below dodge the freeze, bolting to the side as the ice cast out towards them and then continuing on their way downstream.

Why would she return to the lair, anyway? Jack was scolding himself, moving on towards the drier riverside. Who would go back there, to that creepy place in the middle of the woods? It was growing even harder to ignore the bitter disappointment building up inside. Jack trudged on, eyes down, staff hooked over his shoulder and his blue hood cloaking his white hair, as if to shield his restless emotions from his open surroundings. The sprite was well aware of the thickening frost spreading behind him, for it was something he subconsciously did when his mind was ticking and he was on the verge of screaming his frustration at the Moon.

An answer. Just one answer... That's all I'm asking for, he cursed him silently. Why is it still so much to ask from you? His inner thoughts raged like a snowstorm, repeating the same annoying question of his existence until he felt the steady temperature of the forest change for a moment.

Then, suddenly aware he was not alone there, Jack halted on his trail and warily glanced around. Someone was close by. He could feel it.

Tensing, he readied his staff to strike if the newcomer did first. The frost around him ceased to spread and his gaze fell upon a slight movement in the mix of wild trees and low-hanging ferns. He took slow steps forward, cautious of spooking them, or simply making himself an easier target. But the newcomer clearly seemed just as cautious as he was. "You can come out," Jack called softly, lowering his weapon. "I won't hurt you." As long you don't hurt me... he added silently, hoping he didn't sound as nervous as he felt.

For a second, his voice seemed to echo back to him with no response. The sprite narrowed his eyes, for a heartbeat thinking he recognized that same unusual mist from before in his first encounter with that girl. But before he could look twice, a slender figure slipped out of the thick expanse of green, fluid and graceful in the motion.

"You were looking for something." Jack whipped around at the voice... so shockingly, achingly familiar when he heard it. Then, slowly pulling back his frosted hood, he felt his chest flutter with a startling feeling of joy that took his breath away for a moment. The girl was there, slowly nearing him with an unreadable expression on her face. And suddenly, Jack realized he had been right. She was definitely a young woman, appearing around his age of 18, and still, with that testy edge to her voice when she spoke.

"I was, yeah," Jack replied a little awkwardly, but still unable to glance away as she came closer. She wasn't hostile this time and in the brighter light, he was finally able to get a better look at her.

She was nowhere near as pale-faced as Jack, with deep ash-brown hair and warm olive-hued skin, complimenting the rich greenery around them. Her form was slender and thin, displayed by her slimming outfit of a high waisted pair of pants and cropped long sleeve shirt. He could see just a small sliver of skin around her slender waist where her tied pants met the frilled ends of her top. She didn't look wild or unkempt at all; instead, her hair was pushed back into a neat lower bun with shorter curled fly-aways loosened near her ears. A particularly chosen style from top to bottom, like she'd done it herself. Jack felt a strangely overwhelming twinge inside again. She's so young... and so pretty.

"Am I that 'something'?" the girl prompted him again tipping her head to one side, and fixing him with a wide-eyed look that made him squirm awkwardly inside.

"You found me, actually."

She nodded once, her gaze never once breaking away from his. "I did, yes... and you found me, too."

Looking him up and down briefly, the beautiful girl studied Jack with growing interest as he hesitated to respond. There was still something so familiar in the way she gazed at him, easy and innocent, despite her probing questions toward him. Those eyes. That soft shade of green, so soft they were almost hazel. Nearly golden. He swore he knew her. He had seen those eyes before.

The girl paused momentarily before she came closer, her gaze moving over him with the same growing curiosity he was feeling towards her. Jack had a name in mind, something foreign, but etched in his head somewhere distant or hidden away. The more he thought about it, the more he strayed further away from actually saying it.

"Why were you looking?" It was a genuine question, like she was still intrigued by his startled reaction to seeing her. Jack met her inquiring stare, still slightly unsure how to answer that.

"I don't know..." was all he could say. The girl blinked, her green eyes round as a child's, but still confused. As she took a wary step back, finishing her steady viewing of him, Jack subconsciously took a rapid step forward, his hand already reaching towards her as if to pull her back yet again. As if she might have vanished before him. Then that strange light flared in the irises of her eyes like a faint warning to keep his distance, and he felt a sudden wave of annoyance crash over him. Don't run!

"You ran last time... but you came back here and found me," Jack briskly pointed out. "Why?"

The girl stared at him, that unreadable expression shadowing her face again. Her uneasy forgiveness of him preventing her from leaving. "I didn't want to." Her voice was crisp, dismissive. "I saw the ground freeze. And then I saw your ice...the same ice from last time." She wants to know who I am, too. She remembered me from the first time we met.

"But you ran from me that first time..." he tried again.

"And you grabbed me..."

And then you just disappeared! he argued back in silence. Already, it felt like a different kind of tension was crackling between them. Not quite hostility, but more like delayed irritation. Trickling frustration that this encounter was not going as he expected. Jack sighed inwardly, not wanting to scare her away again. But it was truly infuriating figuring her out without letting on that he was searching for her.

Then, as if also sensing the tension building between them, the young woman uneasily shifted her gaze away, the sharpness in her tone suddenly faltering. "Look, I didn't mean to run, or disappear... you just came out of nowhere and it scared me for a moment."

"I'm sorry... I just-" He broke off, once again avoiding telling her she triggered some powerful, unknown memory in his cold and lonely immortal past. "I was just curious, that's all. I didn't mean to scare you." Jack tried to catch her eye, hoping she understood his genuine apology.

"I've just never met someone who always walks around without shoes, I guess." She lowered her gaze a bit awkwardly, looking down at her own bare feet. But suddenly, Jack felt his breath catch in his chest again as she spoke those words. Those exact words...he had heard them before. That bright pair of ivy green eyes, that voice...

"Kiara?" The name was out before he had any time to think about it. His voice shook with a sudden choking emotion, like he might cry out of shock or joy... or even both. But the girl seemed to recoil, all signs of her softening attitude gone. She backed away, a different look clouding her gaze. Darker, like a bad memory suddenly coming back to her.

"Who are you?" Her voice broke too, as if she were faltering over the same unexpected shock from him. Then Jack's heart painfully stilled. She really doesn't remember me...

"You...you don't know?" He took a step towards Kiara, sudden tears pricking behind his eyes as she shrank away again with a sickened expression clouding her elegant face. What happened to you?

The spared bits and pieces of their distant past came back to him like vacant wisps of a precious dream. He remembered her as a little girl, lost and scared and alone. He remembered how he vowed to protect her no matter what as she grew into a beautiful young woman. And then, against everything he warned once himself of, how Jack had become hopelessly attached to her... and how she was taken away from him. Another piece of mortal life he could never have, happiness he couldn't understand why he had to lose. You were my best friend, Kiara. My light in the darkness... How could you forget that?

But she stared at him now like she would never come near him again. "Please don't be afraid of me. Please..."

"I never told you my name." Her eyes brimmed in shock, but Jack saw that cold light in them returning again, almost as menacing as the anger rising in her voice. "I don't know you."

"I had to find you." Somehow, that was all he managed to say before he took a deep breath to steady himself. It was agonizing now, seeing her keep herself away from him like this as he was overwhelmed by his growing desperation. It took everything he had in him to stay where he was, where she wanted him. Distanced from her in his tiny world of frost and loneliness. But he spoke again, fighting to stay level-headed. "I knew you, a long time ago. I was your best friend before." Jack faltered, his voice weakening again. "Then I lost you... and I just didn't know what else to do." Please, I can't lose you again... not like this.

Kiara still looked uneasy, and unconvinced. "I don't understand..." Taking another deep breath, he moved closer and this time, to his relief, she didn't edge away.

"It's me, Jack..."

"Jack?" she whispered back and hope lifted in his chest again.

"Jack Frost."Your guardian angel, Kiara... Somehow, he vaguely remembered her gentle voice calling him that, hidden somewhere in the ever-foggy part of his mind. Do you remember that?

Her green eyes flicked away and back for a moment. "I've heard about you... the spirit of winter and chaos. But I don't know who you are."

"No, that's not-" he burst out. But with a hollow feeling, he knew he was losing this fight. His desperation to make her see was getting the best of him. "It was so long ago, Kiara..."Jack trailed off, despair once again overwhelming him as he looked at the face of his closest friend, so different from when he last saw her and now, almost unfamiliar to him.

"I see..." She held his gaze steadily, but the uncertainty in her own expression remained.

"I'm sorry." Jack looked away, forcing away his own bitter tears as they threatened to fall. "I shouldn't have come here again..." As he spoke those words, the ache in his chest reminded him of the emptiness he felt every time a child walked through him, as if he didn't exist. As if he never would.

"You had to know... and I understand that." Kiara suddenly sounded so sad, like she was just as disappointed as he was. The winter sprite looked back at her, curious about what she could mean, but unwilling to ask. It seemed that the more questions he had, the less of the truth his heart could take. She's really gone...

In his eternal life sentence, Jack always knew getting close to a mortal would someday force him through another goodbye he would never be ready for. And while his precious time with Kiara was long gone, he still remembered that. Even as time passed, and he didn't miss her so much it hurt, no matter what, she stayed in his heart forever. She was the only warmth he'd ever known and he never got to say goodbye. And now, he knew he never wanted to.

But if you didn't, a soft voice whispered back, would she still be here in front of you?

His heart lurched again, causing him another wave of pain that stung through his whole body. But deep inside, Jack knew that distant, almost faded voice was right. Seeing his lost companion there in front of him eased a little of his returning heartache... but Kiara's memories had clearly been changed, or even lost, and it tore at him from the inside out. Yet there she was, close enough to be touched, to see him as he was. Somehow brought back by fate, chance... or maybe even the Man in the Moon himself. This is impossible...

"Kiara, look, I have to go." Jack faced her again, this time meeting her soft green eyes with his own frosty blue ones. "I'm sorry I startled you when I did." She glanced briefly over her shoulder at lower tree branches stirring in the breeze.

"I hope you find whoever it is you're looking for, Jack..." Again, his heart ached at the tenderness in her tone as she spoke his name and he was suddenly reminded of how deeply he missed her over 18 years, even if she hadn't filled his thoughts every second of the day. Just a few feet near her, a dried sycamore leaf cracked off and drifted away from its branch, suddenly reminding him of the old nickname he'd given her. I hope so too, petal.

But before he could turn to leave, he stopped and turned back, suddenly unwilling to part with her like this. "Can I see you again?"

Kiara hesitated at that question, her expression going blank for a moment. As she tucked a loose strand of curled hair behind her ear, a seed of hope slowly sprouted in his heart again. "I'm sure we'll run into each other," she replied, regaining her composure and something fluttered wildly inside him at the velveteen way she said it. "Seems to keep happening anyway."

Chest aching, Jack smiled faintly as Kiara glanced at him once more and turned to retreat back into the lush green forest. He watched her go, his head feeling a little lighter and heavier all at once. In his 300 years of being Jack Frost, he knew second chances didn't usually work this much in his favor, but his smile didn't pull at his cheeks anymore after she disappeared. Once again, he felt that desperate tug towards that achingly beautiful girl as soon as she was out of his sight... As if he might have followed her, suddenly afraid they wouldn't meet again by chance, despite her casual promise that they would.

It keeps happening... Kiara's parting words stayed with him, and revived his deep lingering hope that it was true as he leapt into the air again, and headed back to the Pole. I found her twice... and they always say third time's the charm.