Short again. This one is Emma Overland centric, and I like this one a lot. I'm getting proud of my little oneshots :D

Hope you enjoy it, and please review with thoughts, feelings, and if I've made any grammar or spelling mistakes then please tell me. I've had a constant migraine for a week and it's really taking a toll on everything I do.

Till next time!

Breathtaking, adj
- it is very beautiful or exciting

It had been exactly a year since Jack had died, and Emma hadn't felt as lonely as she did that day when she wandered around the small village on her own, ignoring the sympathetic looks from the people she knew and had grown up around, because no matter what anyone said or did she still felt solely responsible for her older brother's death.

She'd been the one to insist they go ice skating, and when he's tried telling her to wait so he could check the ice she'd rushed on anyway, and before she knew it he'd saved her life but had gone under instead. Jack had never been a strong swimmer, and the second the ice gave from under him she knew it was already too late.

The seasons had seemed somewhat out of sync since he'd gone. Winter had ended too soon last year and Spring blossomed way before its time. Summer had been long and hot before giving way to a chilling Autumn.

And although it was early December now, and they should already have a few feet of snow, there wasn't a flake on the ground. There had been ice a plenty, and so much frost clung to windows and trees and the edges of clothes if you were out too long, but no snow. And that seemed the worst thing of all, because Jack had loved the snow, and it seemed almost as if the season was mourning with her.

The small brunette wandered away from the village's outskirts, past the cabins and the pens that livestock were kept in. She trekked down the familiar old path that she'd not stepped foot on in exactly three hundred and sixty five days, because she'd not visited the place of Jack's death in all that time. She'd not had the courage to.

As Emma walked towards the pond, she felt the temperature around her dip a bit, and as soon as she stepped out into the clearing where the pond was she felt a gust of cold wind hit her that was so strong it knocked her off her feet and she toppled backwards onto a pile of leaves. The air was chilled, and silent then, and Emma pushed herself to her feet and walked forward again, looking about her as everything suddenly felt different.

Something, she didn't know what, made the girl look upward at the heavens, and the clouded sky was above her. But most importantly, most significantly, a small snowflake fell down from the sky slowly, and she watched it as it continued its decent in front of her, twirling intricately on the now gentle breeze. Something possessed her to catch it, so in one quick motion she shot her arm out and the flake landed on her hand. Whereas she'd expected it to malt in an instant, the snowflake stayed in tact, and her breath hitched in her throat as she looked at it, the pattern delicate and beautiful and she felt tears sting her eyes.

It had been exactly a year since Jack died, and Emma hadn't felt as lonely as she did that day.

But now something had changed, and though in three hundred and sixty five days she had not been able to grieve, she felt as though a wave washed over her. It wasn't grief, it wasn't pain. It was relief. Because in that year she'd felt so lonely, but now she felt as though she had him back in some small way.

Her brother Jack was still with her.