"I'm not a kid, you know," Jack said.

Lily looked up at his face as he slowly brought his arms around her. It was a classic Jack Frost line, but was delivered in an emotionless, unfunny manner. Lily tried her best to hide her apprehension and smiled.

"No, you're not. In fact, you're waaaay older than me. One might even say you're a boring old man."

Jack scoffed. "Boring, my ass."

Lily laughed and hugged him tighter. It was strange; this was still Jack but it felt like something vital was missing. Lily thought about the nesting dolls that North had given him years ago. This Jack was missing his center - a shell of who he was supposed to be.

"So, uh, how are you? I mean… how do you feel?" Lily almost felt as if she was talking to someone she'd just met for the first time.

Jack glanced at her. "Hot. And you're… really cold."

He quickly released her, realizing that he must feel like a red hot iron against her skin. Lily wanted to keep holding him, but the heat had become too uncomfortable to ignore. She took a step back and smiled at him reassuringly.

"I'm fine. Don't worry."

Jack nodded and scratched the back of his head. They stood there in silence for a few long seconds as both of them tried to figure out what to say.

"It's weird that you're hot now. I MEAN… not that kind of hot. That's not to say that you're not hot. WAIT, not that I've thought extensively about that before now." Lily mentally slapped herself for sounding like a complete, blubbering idiot. It really did feel like she was having a conversation with some long-lost relative or a coworker that worked on the other side of the office building.

Jack chuckled, "So you think I'm hot?" His smile grew as he saw Lily's face redden with embarrassment. "I'm just messing with you. I know what you meant."

Jack lifted his hand to inspect it. Had he really done all that damage? He remembered standing on top of the tree and then… suddenly Lily was there, holding him. Wait, where was his staff? Had it burned up with the tree? It was made of wood after all. He began to glance around anxiously, hoping to find it in one piece.

"What are you looking for?"Lily asked.

"Uhh… my staff," Jack replied as his search became more frantic.

"Oh? You lost it?"

"I don't know. I don't remember what happened."

That was news to Lily. So Jack got so angry… that he blacked out?! Jack was rarely ever mad so to think that he'd gotten that mad was concerning, to say the least. But Lily had to remind herself that Jack had changed in some way or another. Neither of them were sure exactly how or why, but he was definitely different.

"How do you know it's even a staff anymore? What if it's just a long, weirdly shaped stick now? Kind of like this one?"

Jack glanced over at Lily who was twirling a suspiciously Jack's-staff-shaped branch like a baton.

"Where was it?" Jack asked as he walked back over to Lily.

"Oh, it was right here on the ground the entire time. I just hid it to see how it'd take you to notice that it was missing." Lily grinned.

Jack may have changed, but that didn't mean he was a completely different person. She wasn't about to give up pranking him just because he'd become a glorified match stick.

Jack smirked. "Is that so? I guess some things will never change."

He lunged toward Lily and swiped at his staff but his hand grasped nothing but air.

Lily laughed and said, "you'll have to be faster than that, Jack Frost."

After a few minutes of chasing, Jack gave up and sat on the ground. Even before he'd lost his winter powers, Lily was a tough match. He knew he had no chance of catching her now. Lily sat down beside him.

"I'm counting this as a win," she said.

"Tsch. Yeah, yeah. Whatever," Jack replied saltily.

Lily held his staff out to him. "Here. Let's see if this hunk of wood still works."

Jack hesitated before cautiously wrapping his fingers around the familiar gnarled wood. A red-orange light began to seep between the cracks and tiny sparks of ash floated upward like fireflies. Rather than frost, glowing embers danced along the surface where his hand was. This was different from the other times. It wasn't explosive like the time he fought with Pitch. It wasn't violent like when he'd cleared a path in the snow. It was warm.

"It's pretty," Lily said.

Jack looked up at her in surprise. "Pretty?"

Lily nodded.

"Sorry, but… look around? I burned a tree to the ground… that's not pretty."

Lily shook her head and smiled. "That's true. What did that poor tree ever do to you?"

She hovered her hand over Jack's staff for a moment before lightly tracing her fingers over his hand.

"But, this is different. It's pretty… just as pretty as the frost you used to make. And these little sparks of ash are just as pretty as the snow you used to make."

The wind lifted the glowing specks high into the air and they floated down slowly just like the first snowflakes of winter.

Lily laughed. "See? Even the wind agrees."

Jack stared at Lily incredulously. How could she think any of this was pretty? He was supposed to be Jack Frost. Without his winter powers, could he even say that he was the same person? Lily didn't seem to be grasping the gravity of the situation.

"Lily. I don't even know who I am anymore."

Lily shook her head. "But, I do. So you look a little different. So you can't make snowballs anymore. So what? You say the same things and you do the same things… And I can still beat your ass at tag. You're still Jack Frost to me."

Jack muttered under his breath, "technically, I forfeited… so, you didn't really beat me."

Lily laughed. "Whatever helps you sleep at night."

She rested her head against his shoulder. "We'll figure this out together, okay?"

Jack sighed. "Okay."

A/N: Wow two updates back-to-back?! I told you I'd finish this fanfiction and I meant it! Besides... I have pretty much all the time in the world now since I've graduated from college. Please leave review and let me know what you think!