Hi everyone. It's taken me awhile to write the rest of this fic, and I am still in the process of editing (or rewriting) a lot of it, but here is a new chapter anyway...

*Again, to those of you who have read the books, book characters' backstories are AU versions of them here.

Thank you for reading!

Chapter 25: Precious Memories

North's Workshop

Tempus did not stay for the brief candlelight memorial the Guardians held for the friends they had lost. The spirit of time apologized for his absence but insisted that he had to go warn the rest of the spirits about Chaos' return. The horrible, heavy feeling of loss, the kind that specifically accompanies the deaths of people who have lost their lives lost long before their time, settled over North's workshop.

Jamie didn't speak as he lit a candle and placed it on Jack's section of the Guardians' mosaic. He stared blankly at the artwork on the floor, numb to those around him and shivering from a cold feeling that seemed to originate from his core and course underneath his skin. The believer also felt physically sick to his stomach whenever he thought about never seeing the spirit of winter again. Diane's steadying hand on his shoulder alone kept him grounded in the present moment.

Terra had stopped the blizzard raging outside for the time being. A blue-green aurora borealis courtesy of Udaya coursed across the night sky, dimly illuminating the frozen tundra outside the workshop.

After the ceremony, Sandy had found a stray blanket somewhere, and after forcefully bundling Jamie into it, he made the teenager sit down on the window seat of one of the Globe Room's main windows. Whatever qualms Jamie might have normally had about being coddled like a young child, he didn't resist the Sandman's attempts to bring him some comfort. The believer felt like he was watching everything around him through someone else's eyes as he stared outside at the bitter cold Arctic landscape.

MiM, Terra, Udaya and the Guardians were talking with his mother by the Globe's controls, and the young teen heard his name whispered more than once.

Sandy had left Jamie's side to listen to the discussion, but soon returned with Tooth and Diane. "Let's go home, Jamie." said Diane, sitting down next to her son.

Jamie turned his gaze away from the flickering fire and over to his mother. "Why were you talking about me?" he asked. The 13 year-old made no move to get up from the window seat, or untangle himself from the Sandman's blanket.

Diane sighed, looking down at her hands clasped in her lap, before answering, "No one is really sure why your eyes were glowing earlier. The best Udaya, Terra, and MiM could think of was that because you were the first to believe in Jack Frost, you two had a strong magical connection that was sort of broken when Chaos…you know."

Jamie's expression hardened at the mention of Chaos, and he silently looked back out the window at the frozen tundra outside with tears of anger and grief forming in his eyes. The 13 year-old hastily wiped them away with the back of his hand. Then Tooth, who had been flying in the air beside Diane, approached the believer. Hovering directly in front of Jamie, the Guardian of Memories put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

Jamie looked up in surprise.

"In my own way, I understand how you feel. And I—I wanted to give you this," she said, holding out beautiful golden cylinder for him to take. Jamie instantly recognized the object as his own tooth box—he had lost his last tooth the year before, and to celebrate, Jack had snuck him and Sophie into the Tooth Palace for an adventure that was ill-advised for those who couldn't fly. It was then that he had seen his tooth box for the first time.

"Am I allowed to take this? What if I lose it?" The believer asked worriedly. Tooth reassured him that she had made sure the boxes couldn't go missing (a magical precaution she had taken after Pitch had stolen all of the tooth boxes three years before.)

With his tooth box in hand, Jamie took a snowglobe portal back to Burgess with his mother.

Udaya had then cast a spell of protection over the world to keep Chaos' power at bay for a little while longer. The spell would eventually wear off, as such a large spell was very difficult to sustain for an indefinite period of time, and impossible to cast over and over again forever. The magical aurora lighting up the skies around every part of the globe would spread her spell of light, and temporarily stop the darkness.

When MiM, Terra, and Udaya were satisfied that the aurora and protection spell would hold for the time being, each of them departed from North's Workshop to prepare to stop Chaos.

Lost in his sadness, Jamie didn't realize he'd left his world history textbook at the Workshop. Luckily, somebody else remembered it for him.

As Sandy, Tooth, and North stood or flew in front of the Globe of Belief searching for any sign of their newest adversary, none of them noticed Jamie's textbook silently rise up from the Globe Room floor and vanish into thin air, leaving no trace of anyone or anything having been there at all.

Burgess, Pennsylvania

Jamie fell asleep on his bed still clutching his tooth box. He was too physically and mentally exhausted to get up again and climb under his covers, or change out of the clothes he'd worn that day during the battle at Bunny's Warren. That night, he dreamed of the first time he'd seen Jack Frost. Or rather, someone who looked like Jack Frost, yet also like someone else that Jamie did not recognize.

A faint crackling sound...a bunny made of frost leapt off his window pane... it was real!...and it felt cold when he touched it…it turned into a flurry of snowflakes...could it be Jack Frost, the one his mother joked about?...Jamie whispered a single name and changed history forever…a voice behind him spoke...

"Did he just say…He said it again! He said—"

Jamie turned around, and that was when he saw him. "Jack Frost?

"Wait, can you hear me?" Jack Frost had asked him, not quite believing that Jamie was looking at him, not through him as all other children had.

Jamie nodded.

The Jack Frost in Jamie's dream-memory did not look exactly like the one Jamie had turned around to find in his bedroom three years ago. This dream-memory Jack Frost had pale green eyes, and wore different clothing. Glowing medieval-esque armor protected most of his body. Instead of his famous shepherd's crook staff, this Jack held a staff tipped with a glowing diamond dagger in his right hand. The way the dagger shone from within was somehow comforting; it was like pure moonlight was caught inside the blade.

"Can you see me?" asked Jack, still wary.

Jamie nodded again.

The Moon

MiM had left the Pole and returned his palace on the Moon. It was a new moon night. His palace lay on the side of the moon always facing the Earth, so tonight his palace lay in the darkness. The Man in the Moon wandered his darkened halls, occasionally stopping to converse with various lunar creatures that resided with and worked for him. He had been shocked when Toothiana, his dear Guardian of Memories, had somehow managed to kill Pitch Black. Although she was a fierce fighter, killing ruthlessly was out of character for her. He had often wondered after that whether the spirit of the afterlife, Death herself, had something to do with Pitch's death, because it was almost impossible to kill an immortal spirit and Tooth herself would not have possessed such power.

Pitch had been his adversary for so long that it felt strange to have to now direct his attention to a new enemy—and one who had managed to create other enemies that the Guardians had faced too. MiM watched the Earth spin on in its endless cycle of day and night and he saw Udaya's auroras carry their spell of light around the world from the north and south poles. He also listened to the wishes, hopes, and dreams of the world's children. He could not fix all of their problems, grant all of their wishes, or make their every good dream come true, but that night on the Moon, MiM wished for every child to have pleasant dreams and rest undisturbed by the dark forces encroaching on their home.

As he thought about how to help Terra, her spirits, and his Guardians defeat Chaos and his minions, MiM found himself wandering into the oldest rooms of his palace, where his old childhood belongings, a few precious family heirlooms, and archives from the Galactic Golden Age were kept. The gentle lunar Guardian found himself standing in front of a family portrait that he had not looked at closely for many decades.

There in the portrait were his mother and father, the handsome Tsar Lunanoff and beautiful Tsarina Lunanoff, both wearing benevolent expressions that matched the way they ruled over the stars. They had been very kind monarchs, MiM remembered. He only remembered a few things about them, as they had died when he was very young.

In the family portrait, Tsarina Lunanoff held her newborn baby in her arms, a baby boy that would one day become the Man in the Moon and a Guardian who watched over the Earth's children. However, there was one other person in the painting that MiM was especially interested in. On the far left side of the portrait stood a thin, somewhat gangly boy wearing bright armor that resembled a uniform.

That boy was Nightlight, to whom the Tsar and Tsarina has entrusted the protection of their darling baby boy. It was Nightlight who had played with and protected MiM day and night as a child, even after the House of Lunanoff had been forced to leave their home to escape Pitch. It had not taken long before Pitch caught up to them. Nightlight protected MiM when the armies of darkness attacked his parent's ship and bravely fought against Pitch's forces, eventually defeating the Nightmare King himself on Earth and bringing an end to the Second War of the Dream Pirates. Nightlight had disappeared in an explosion of light along with Pitch Black in the last moments of their final battle. Although Pitch returned many times after that, Nightlight had never been seen or heard from again.

MiM missed Nightlight terribly. He had searched for his friend all over the Earth for centuries after that first war with Pitch ended, but never found a trace of his friend. The more the Man in the Moon considered the portrait and his memories of his childhood friend, the more perplexed the lunar Guardian became.

What had happened to Nightlight all those years ago, and why had none of MiM's moonbeams found a single sign of him in the thousands of years after his disappearance?

Could it be possible that Nightlight, an ancient magical being of light, had truly died as he defeated Pitch? Or had something stranger happened to the immortal boy with glowing armor?

Despite all of his wisdom and experience, the Man in the Moon had never felt so lost. He, Terra, and Udaya could only thing of one spirit who might have the answers to their most pressing questions about how to fully defeat Chaos, get Jack Frost back, (and for MiM to find out what had happened to Nightlight,) and that was the spirit of Death. Most of the spirits had long forgotten her and thought she didn't exist. MiM was not one of them. He believed in her existence, though he was starting to doubt his initial belief that that the insignia Hell and Death wore had once belonged to her. Working with Hell and Dark would go against Death's ultimate duty to remain neutral in all conflicts. Now he was more inclined to believed the symbol of a trident and a sword crossed over a flame belonged solely to Chaos.

In any case, Death was a mysterious spirit, impossible to seek out if she did not want to be found, and according to Udaya, no spirit had seen her in person for over a thousand years.