"Jamie..." Jack whispered dumbfounded, rationality telling him that there was no way his friend was actually here.

Maybe he was just hallucinating, his desperate wish to get out of this disturbing situation playing tricks on his mind. But judging from the disgruntled expression on Pitch's face this was indeed happening. The boogeyman wasn't happy about the turn of events at all. With pure spite he glared at the teenager who had ruined his plans so many years ago with his stupid unwavering belief in the guardians. And now, just as he had taken the opportunity to take at least a foretaste of his final revenge, the brat interfered again.

Jamie had walked towards them and stopped a few feet in front of Jack, blocking him from the Nightmare King's sight in what could only be called a gesture of protection. His gaze was fixed on Pitch, not a glimmer of fear in his defiant brown eyes, which aggravated the dark spirit beyond imagination.

"I'll never stop believing in Jack. He's my best friend, so how could I? You were defeated back then and you won't win now either. You really should know when it's time to give up and hide in your hole again."

Those words, so confident, so firm, so strong. A slap in the face couldn't have hurt Pitch's ego more. While he was boiling with anger Jamie turned around and smiled at the Guardian of Fun who still looked a little positively bewildered.

"I promise I'll always remember you."

Finally Jack snapped out of his daze, that moment he felt just like he had when Jamie had seen him for the very first time. Though he refrained from doing a backflip now and tried to keep his cool, holding back the watery sensation in his eyes as he returned the smile.

Pitch saw his chance and formed a small dagger out of nightmare sand behind his back. He would have prefered his scythe, the large arrow he defeated Sandy with or one of his beloved Nightmares but in his current condition he couldn't create such large weapons. Never would he have expected his plan to backfire on him that badly, incapacitating him for years, if not decades to come. But this now should be easy, revenge, victory, satisfaction, he longed for it, he couldn't just crawl back into his lair like a coward. Not after what the brat had said.

Time stood still. It only took a second, two at the utmost, but to Jack it all happened in slow-motion. He saw Pitch's expression change into a fierce grin, golden eyes glinting with malice as he lunged out and threw something in their direction, right at Jamie who was still standing between him and the boogeyman. Sapphire blue eyes widened in sheer terror, his mouth failing to utter anything but a strangled gasp. The bastard seriously wanted to kill his first believer! Reflexively he pushed the brunette teenager out of the way, sending him towards the earthy ground where he landed with a startled yell. Startled but safe.

"Hey, what-" the Bennett boy wanted to ask as he rubbed his elbow which had suffered most from his ungentle impact.

What he saw when he turned his head at the winter spirit made him forget how to speak and even breathe for a moment. All he could do was stare in horror. Jack was standing next to him, his legs threatening to slacken as they trembled faintly, just like the rest of his body. His gaze was fixed on the ground beneath his feet, eyes void of any emotion. The magical staff was gripped tightly, knuckles turning white. A black dagger was sticking out from his left shoulder, up to the hilt, blood trickling out of the wound and dyeing his blue hoodie dark red.

"Jack..." Jamie muttered like paralyzed, expecting his friend to collapse any moment.

Pitch loved this. While he had aimed to kill or at least severely injure the brown-haired brat the outcome of hitting the winter spirit himself was so much better. Finally the young Bennett's eyes shone with fear and desperation, not with that blasted courage and belief. No, he was scared, it was exquisite. He couldn't wait for the icy annoyance to drop to his feet and fall unconscious, revenge would be his.

Suddenly Jack lifted his head, blue eyes looking up at the Nightmare King who had to notice that there was no sign of defeat or weakness errupting from him. The glare he was confronted with shone with anger and determination and even though he would have never openly admitted it, Pitch knew he was in big trouble.

Jack grabbed the dark hilt of the dagger and froze it solid, the black sand still being visible underneath the thin layer of ice. Only a low groan escaped his lips when he pulled it out in a swift motion. The bloody weapon was thrown at a nearby rock were it shattered into a hundred tiny pieces.

"You went too far this time, Pitch." Jack started, his voice as cold as his element.

"If you have a problem with me and want to fight me, then do it. But if you attack my friends then you have a damn problem! I won't allow you to hurt them, you hear me!?"

Blasts of ice were shot at the boogeyman at such speed that he had no chance to dodge them. His mere attempts of shielding himself with nightmare sand were rather pathetic as well as useless since he didn't possess enough power for a battle. Pissing off the Spirit of Winter in this state surely hadn't been his brightest idea. Even after being hit several times Pitch saw no sign of the frost teen stopping his attack anytime soon, he had to do something or he would be knocked out for who knew how long. Taking advantage of the shadows being formed by the setting sun the Nightmare King dissappeared among them. He didn't come far however when Jack spotted him a short distance away from him. Blue eyes narrowed even more and while Pitch dragged himself from shadow to shadow, his physical condition had immensely suffered from the assault, the white-haired boy was picked up by the wind and landed gracefully right in front of him.

"You want to run away? Let me help you with that." he smirked.

Pitch couldn't suppress the slightest bit of anxiety in his stomach. Okay, scratch that, he knew he was screwed.

A small tornado of snow formed as Jack swirled his staff and engulfed the boogeyman who yelled out in protest as he failed to fight the dizziness which resulted from being whirled around like a hula hoop. Suddenly he was thrown down on the hard ground and landed at the winter spirit's feet, who bent down and grabbed him by the collar of his black cloak.

"Don't you ever dare to try hurting one of my friends again." the young immortal snarled.

The next moment the dark spirit was grasped by the icy tornado again and dragged into the hole which lead to his lair. To make sure he wouldn't return for a while, in case beating the crap out of him hadn't done the job properly, Jack sealed the entrance with a thick layer of ice.

He hoped that had been enough to clarify his position.

Back at the lake he met Jamie who came running to him, worry and shock about what happened but also relief about his best friend returning in one piece evident on his face.

"Jack! Are you alright?" he shouted as he saw the winter spirit flying towards him.

"Yeah, sure, I-" the frost teen started and stumbled forwards as soon as his feet touched the ground.

Jamie reacted quickly and caught him before he could fall and let himself sink down to his knees together with his friend. Before he could utter anything he felt something wet on his hand and gasped in horror as he noticed what it was. Blood. Half of Jack's hoodie was soaked in it. Now that the adrenaline and anger had worn off the effects of his wound hit him full force. He was pretty sure the dagger hadn't hit any vital organs and even though he had lost a considerable amount of blood he would survive. After all he had a bit of experience with injuries.

"Jack, you-you-" Jamie stuttered, eyes still wide with fear and concern.

"Don't worry, I'll be fine." the ancient teen reassured him and patted his shoulder weakly.

"You don't look like it."

"Trust me, I will. Have I ever lied to you?"

Blue orbs glanced at brown ones before he grabbed his staff for support and dragged himself back on his feet, walked towards one of the large rocks surrounding the lake and sat down leaning against it.

"Give me a while, I recover pretty fast."

The young Bennett still didn't seem to be convinced, he couldn't keep his eyes from all that blood. Jack was aware of the teen's uneasiness and wished he would manage to lighten the mood. Those worried and scared looks weren't exactly something he liked to see, especially not when he was the cause of it.

"Ghee, the yetis will have a hard time cleaning this." he remarked and pointed at the dark red splotches on his hoodie.

"I just hope I can sneak past North, he would freak out if he saw me like this. You have no idea what a mother hen that big guy can be."

Jack chuckled and Jamie couldn't help but join when he imagined Santa Clause chasing the Guardian of Fun with a first-aid box.

"You promise me you'll be okay?"

"I promise."

"This is all my fault..." the brunette teen muttered, not able to look at his friend anymore.

"What are you talking about?"

"If I had spent the day with you then you wouldn't have come here, Pitch wouldn't have confronted you and if I hadn't shown up you wouldn't have had to save me and...and...Jack, you almost got yourself killed to protect me!" Jamie blurted out with an increasing trembling voice and tried in vain to hold back tears.

"Hey, easy now. Come here." the winter spirit said gently and patted the spot next to him.

His first believer hesitantly approached him and sat down, still avoiding his gaze. A cold hand was placed on his shoulder and despite the low temperature the touch comforted him.

"Will you please stop with the self-blaming? There's nothing you have to feel guilty about. Pitch is a bastard, that's the beginning and the end of the story. Who knows what would have happened if you hadn't appeared. You defeated fear once more, just that it was my fear this time." Jack explained calmly and gave him a soft smile before adding :

"Thanks for that."

Now Jamie looked up at him, obviously relieved and returned the smile. That's when another question popped up in the frost teen's head.

"Not that I wanna complain, but what are you even doing here? I thought you had a date?"

"Yeah, well...that was quite a fail." the 15-year old admitted and rubbed his neck.

Jack raised an eyebrow and stared at him expectantly, curiousity getting the better of him like so often.

"Care to explain?"

"Uhm...I was waiting at the ice cream parlor where we wanted to meet. It was a little too early but I wanted to make sure I didn't let her wait. That's when I got a text message from her telling me she just remembered she had an appointment and no time for me. No idea if that's true or she just didn't feel like going out with me anymore. To be honest, it sounded like the latter. I felt like crap." Jamie recounted and felt terribly embarrassed about being dumped like that.

"However, then I realized that I did the same to you. Kinda throwing you out because I had something else to do and suddenly felt really bad about it. So I hoped you'd be here at the lake because I wanted to apologize."

There was an awkward silence between the two until Jack patted his friend's back..

"Apology accepted."

Jamie let out a breath he hadn't noticed he was holding. He knew that the Guardian of Fun wasn't resentful but it was still nice to hear he wasn't upset about what had happened. And yet, there was a strange glint in those blue eyes, almost melancholic as they stared up at the sky.

"I guess I can't hinder you from growing up. No, of course I can't. It's a miracle you're even still believing in me. I'm no fool, I know you'll forget me sooner or later. I'm just glad we might still have a few years until that's gonna happen." Jack muttered quietly and it seemed like he was talking to himself rather than the teenager sitting next to him.

"I won't! Why do you say that?" Jamie protested.

"It's clear as day that you're changing. You got new hobbies and interests, all is different now. You're not a child anymore and don't need me. To be honest I feel like I'm bothering you more and more and I really don't want to do that. You've done so much for me and I'm grateful for the time we spent together. Guess I just have problems with letting go... "

"That's not true! Well, yeah, I'm getting older and growing up but that doesn't mean I will forget you. You really don't bother me. I like to have you around and talk to you. You're still my best friend, even if I don't always have time for you." Jamie assured.

Jack smiled at him, desperately wanting to believe those words but rational thinking still tried to convince him that there was no way the boy would still see him when he entered adulthood, married, got kids and so on. He was just glad that Jamie still believed in him right now.

While they were talking the sun had dissappeared behind the horizon and the moon had taken its place, shining down on the two friends as the only light penetrating the darkness of the night.

"It's getting late, don't you have to be at home in time?" Jack asked out of the blue.

"Hey, you wanna get rid of me?" Jamie retorted jokingly which brought him a chuckle from the older teen.

"Nah, just don't want you to get into trouble...again."

"It's okay, Mom thinks I'm on that date anyway and I only have to be back in around two hours. And to be honest I don't think I should leave you alone like that." he added and glanced concerned at the injury again.

"I told you I'm gonna be okay. Immortals don't die from a simple stab wound. All I need is a little rest and then I'll fly back to the North Pole and hope no one will see me and make a fuss."

Jack did his best to keep his voice steady and calm but there was the slightest hint of aggravation resonating in it. It was his job to make children happy, not worried. He didn't like it when the guardians were showering him with concern and pity for whatever reason and the fact that Jamie was currently mimicking their behaviour made him feel uncomfortable to say the least.

"Well, alright, if you say so." Jamie said after a moment of pondering.

It didn't sound like he was fully satisfied with the explanation but he knew there was no point in further arguing with the winter spirit. And he trusted him so he also had to trust his words. On closer examination the brunette teen noticed that Jack's blue eyes were fluttering closed and open again and his head kept falling forwards before rising back up.

"Are you tired?"

"A little." the frost teen mumbled wearily.

"Maybe you should get some sleep but...you promise me to wake up again, right?"

"I will."

"Okay...then I guess I should leave now. But if you want I can stay until you fall asleep."

"Jamie, no offence but I'm over 300 years old, not 3." Jack stated and a faint grin appeared on his face.

Even though he felt akward to be the center of so much concern it was amusing how his 15-year old believer had suddenly turned into...Tooth.

"Yeah, okay, I know. I mean...okay." Jamie stuttered and just as he was about to stand up a cold hand grabbed his arm.

"Thanks...for being my friend." the white-haired teen whispered, feeling like it had to be said.

"Thanks to you, too." the younger boy smiled and protested when Jack ruffled his hair.

"Hahah, you'll never be too old for this." the immortal chuckled and watched him getting back on his feet.

"So, I'll see you around?" Jamie wanted to know.

"Yeah, promised."

"Alright. Then get well soon. Bye!"

Jack saw his best friend vanishing among the trees of the forest and leaned back against the smooth rock, exhaling deeply. This day surely hadn't gone according to plan. Whatever, it could have been worse. Probably. His eyelids felt heavier and heavier and by now he didn't bother to fight the drowsiness anymore. Within a few moments he let sleep take over and relaxed as his body began its recovery. As soon as he woke up he would be in a much better condition and fly back to the workshop where cookies and chocolate milk were waiting for him. Unless North or one of the other guardians saw him in his blood-stained shirt and locked him in his room out of over caution for the next days. No, the prospect of cookies was definitely better.