Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who faved, followed and reviewed! So the movie has begun. You'll have to pardon my version of the movie, since I'm going off of memory here. So far not too much is different, but bear with me. Things will definitely be different once Pitch is involved..

Chapter Fifteen: Rise of the Guardians

Jack had noticed that Lillian seemed down, so he suggested that they go spread a little winter around, since it was now winter time in Burgess and other parts of the world. Lillian had merely shrugged at the offer. It was day time in Burgess so Pitch was asleep and wouldn't notice they were gone.

Not that she was sure that he'd notice anyway. But it was difficult to be depressed while she was flying high over cities and countries and soon she was giggling. She was wearing a spring green dress with a matching bow in her hair and she had her black cloak tied very securely around her shoulders. She also had on earmuffs since her hood wouldn't stay up in the wind, plus she also had on a scarf, gloves and her boots.

Lillian pointed down at a city and Jack grinned in response. Soon Jack was having fun freezing the street, causing people to slip. Lillian giggled when Jack froze a water fountain for a poor boy and a goldfish's tank.

"That was fun!" Lillian said to Jack as Jack flew them around with the wind's help.

After spending a few more hours wandering around and spreading frost and snow, Jack had them head back to Burgess.

"Snoooow daaay~!" Jack gleefully declared.

Ever since he and Lillian had gone to school, Jack had a much greater appreciation for snow days and tried to give the kids of Burgess as many as he could without causing too much trouble.

"Yeah!" Lillian cheered along with Jack as they came in for a landing by the lake.

The gust of wind that blew in when they landed knocked a book out of a boy's hands. The boy had messy brown hair and brown eyes and seemed small for his age.

"Hey, look!" Lillian pointed at the boy. "That's Jamie Bennet! He's that kid who believes in practically anything."

"Almost anything," Jack said with a tinge of sadness.

Lillian patted Jack's arm and walked over by Jamie. She got a look at the book's cover and could see it was all about the mysteries of the world.

"Ohh," Lillian said. "You think he'd mind if I borrowed his book?"

Jack laughed a little at that.

"He'd probably think that Bigfoot took it!"

Twin boys came running up to Jamie to declare that it was a snow day.

"You're welcome!" Jack called out playfully to the kids as they walked away from Jack's lake and to Jamie's house.

Jack and Lillian decided to follow after, both for their own reasons. Lillian was hoping that Jamie would put his book down so she could 'borrow' it and Jack wanted to see if the kids would be up to anything fun today. Even if they couldn't see him, Jack loved hanging around all the children.

Soon Jamie and all his friends were hanging around his house while Jamie bored them all with facts about Bigfoot.

"You'll believe anything," one of the boys said with an eye roll.

"Bigfoot IS real!" Jamie insisted.

While Jamie was talking with his friends, his little sister Sophie came outside. She tried to sit down on their greyhound who was laying on the ground, but the dog got up and walked away, not interested in giving out rides.

Sophie wound up tripping and falling over, starting to cry.

"Oh no!" Lillian said as she hurried over.

None of the kids seemed to notice the extra footprints in the snow, or that the snow had started to melt a little. Lillian might have good control over her powers, but for some reason she couldn't control the fact that things melted where she stood and spring flowers had a tendency to sprout up where she walked. She wasn't sure why this was, but she figured if it hadn't changed in over thirty years, she was stuck with it.

"Mom! Sophie fell down!" Jamie called out, not overly concerned.

Jamie's mom soon came out and scooped little Sophie up in her arms. His mom gave Jamie an annoyed look.

"Jamie, hat? You don't want Jack Frost nipping at your nose!"

"Who's Jack Frost?" Jamie asked with interest.

Lillian looked over at Jack with surprise. Someone knew who he was!

A smile started to spread on Jack's face as hope entered his eyes. Maybe he'd finally get a believer.

"He's nobody," Jamie's mom said dismissively. "It's just an expression."

"Oh," Jamie said, a little disappointed by that.

"Are you kidding?!" Lillian loudly exclaimed as the kids left Jamie's yard to go run off and play at the nearby park.

"Should we show them who Jack Frost is?" Jack asked Lillian with a grin.

Lillian noticed that while Jack wanted to have fun, it hurt him to have that silly expression going around and not have anybody believe in him.

She figured one or more of their experiments to get Jack some believers must have worked, if people had heard of Jack Frost. It's just that most people believed that Jack was a fictional character!

"Yeah," Lillian said with a smirk.

So Jack and Lillian followed after the kids. Jack had grabbed some snow and formed it into a snowball. He blew on it gently, infusing it with some winter magic and it became a perfect snowball.

Jack threw it with perfect aim and hit Jamie right in the back of the head.

"Hey!" Jamie yelled, but then the blue sparkles of Jack's special winter magic took over and Jamie began to laugh.

"Who threw that?" he asked with a grin.

He wound up throwing another snowball and soon there was an all out free-for-fall, with Jack and Lillian contributing by throwing some random snowballs here and there.

The kids were busy having so much fun that they didn't realize that there were extra snowballs flying around.

All of a sudden, a snowball hit a little girl wearing pink. She was big for her age and looked very unfriendly.

"Crud, I hit Cupcake!" Pippa, one of Jamie's female friends said while looking scared.

Lillian giggled when she saw that it was actually Jack, who was showing off by crouching on his staff. She never knew how he did it, but Jack seemed to defy gravity sometimes.

It used to drive Pitch crazy, since Pitch would offer Jack a seat, and Jack would just crouch on his staff, giving an annoyed Pitch a smug look.

But that had been a long time ago, Lillian realized. Pitch hadn't offered Jack tea or invited him to stay for dinner in a long, long time.

The smile slipped off Lillian's face while the kids ran around running and screaming, having a lot of fun. Apparently Jack had used his special winter powers to make Cupcake want to have more fun, as she was now playing with all the kids.

"Oh, little slippery!" Jack said, playing with the kids.

He made ice appear under their feet and they all fell down, except for Jamie, who fell on his sled and took off like a shot.

"H-hey!" Lillian pouted, as she realized that not only was she missing out on the fun, but Jack had just left her behind! No fair!

Lillian started running after them, but slipped on the ice herself and started screaming when she took off like a shot in the ice path, on her stomach.

She covered her eyes when she slid into the street, completely out of control.

"JACK!" Lillian screamed as loudly as she could.

Jack was flying ahead of Jamie, carefully directing Jamie around traffic. At Lillian's scream, he looked back and nearly face palmed.

There was Lillian, sliding along on her stomach and barely avoiding traffic herself. In fact, there was a moving van..!

Jack helped Jamie narrowly avoid the moving van and quickly flew back by Lillian, picking her up by the scruff of her hood and lifting her over the van.

Lillian still had her eyes covered and was whimpering in fright. Jack noticed that Jamie was headed for trouble again, so he dropped Lillian off in the snow and quickly made a ramp for Jamie, so he would fly over the obstacles.

Jamie looked terrified, but soon a grin lit up his face as he went flying through the air. Jack grinned as he saw how much fun Jamie was having.

Jamie landed in a big pile of snow near a statue of the town's founder while Jamie's friends started running towards him in the background, all asking Jamie if he was alright.

Jamie happily started explaining about his awesome sled ride when a couch that had fallen out of the moving van suddenly bowled him over.

"Oof!" Jamie exclaimed as he was knocked off his feet.

"Omigosh! Jamie, are you alright?!" his friends exclaimed.

Jamie held up a hand triumphantly and stood with a grin to reveal a new gap in his smile. Jamie was holding a missing tooth.

"Alright! Tooth fairy cash!" one of Jamie's friends exclaimed.

Jack, who had landed by Lillian to see if she was alright, looked hurt that they'd forgotten all about Jamie's awesome sled ride.

Lillian who had finally uncovered her eyes, was trying to recover from almost dying a bunch of times while she slid on her stomach. She brushed the snow off the front of her cloak, but it was still wet from the ice and snow. She shivered a little as it started to snow.

She gave Jack a hug, knowing that it was only snowing because her friend was upset.

"It's okay, Jack," she said softly to him. "He's just a kid. They get excited about things like that."

Jack looked down at his friend, finding it ironic that what appeared to be a six year old was telling him that Jamie was just a kid.

"I just wish.. I wish they'd believe," Jack said wistfully.

Lillian pulled away from Jack with a nod. She didn't really care if kids believed in her or not as she preferred to be with Jack over anybody else, but she knew that it hurt Jack that nobody could see or hear him except for other spirits.

"Hey," Lillian said with a smile. "Want to go read Jamie's book?"

Jack shook his head a smile, but followed after Lillian as she ran off for Jamie's house.

Lillian and Jack wound up spending the rest of the afternoon at Jamie's. Jamie did wind up putting his book down in his room and then spent over half an hour trying to find it. He didn't realize that a spring spirit had 'borrowed' it.

Jack laughed at Jamie's futile attempts and before long, Jamie was being tucked in by his mom. Jack could see that Lillian was watching them sadly, with a look of longing on her face.

"Hey," Jack said, wrapping an arm around Lillian in a side hug. "It's time for you to go home, isn't it?"

Lillian shrugged half-heartedly and Jack sighed at the solemn expression on his friend's face. It was an expression he had gotten to know well over the years.

Lillian pulled away from Jack and gently set Jamie's book down on his nightstand. Despite Jamie's claims of staying up all night, he had fallen asleep very quickly. As she looked at Jamie, one last hope ocurred to her. Before she returned to Jack's side, she leaned in close to Jamie and whispered softly in his ear.

"Jack Frost is real."

Jamie stirred a little in his sleep as Lillian walked over by Jack.

"What did you do?" Jack asked a little suspiciously.

Lillian gave Jack a small smile.

"Subliminal messaging?" she said innocently.

Jack wasn't sure what that was and soon he had called for the wind to fly them from Jamie's. He and Lillian were headed toward Pitch's, when they saw the golden streams of dreamsand.

"Look, it's the Sandman!" Jack pointed to the streams down below them. "Want to go say hi?"

Lillian smiled at the golden ribbons. She never told Jack, but one of her favorite things to do was to play with the Sandman's dreamsand. The images it made were amazing, and usually the Sandman would visit with them. Sure, it was only for a few moments and he usually wound up knocking them out and leaving them at Jack's lake, but those were the only times that Lillian could have the sweet dreams that came from the dreamsand.

They were bittersweet moments for Lillian, since reality would come crashing down when she woke up and she would have to return to Pitch's. If he was in a parental mood, he would scold her for being out all night. She never told Pitch, but she relished those moments since it meant he still cared.

If Pitch was in his other mood, the dark one he was in so much lately, he wouldn't notice that she'd been gone and she would have to get her own breakfast.

But Lillian left those thoughts at the back of her mind as she enthusiastically nodded.

So the two of them flew lower. Lillian reached out and touched a tendril of golden sand. The familiar form of Pitch started to form from it when something darted out from nearby and dashed past them.

Lillian exchanged a look with Jack. Whatever it was, was fast.

Jack had them land in the mouth of an alleyway, when a voice called out to them.

"Jack Frost," someone with a very familiar Austrailian accent said. "Been a long time. Haven't seen ya since '68, I believe."

Jack flinched at the reminder of that awful day as he and Lillian saw Bunny leaning casually against a building by the alley. Bunny was inspecting one of his boomerangs.

Infuriated that the Easter Bunny was picking on Jack, Lillian stepped forward to say something, but Sandy beat her to it.

Attracted to the feeling of someone messing with his dreamsand, he had flown down on his cloud in hopes of finding his two favorite spirits.

Instead he found an upset Jack and Lillian being confronted by Bunny. Sandy immediately flew in front of Bunny and shook his finger at him. Didn't they already discuss this? Tooth had put her foot down at the 'shove him in a sack' idea. They'd agreed that Sandy could pick Jack up while doing his rounds.

Bunny shrugged.

"North said this way was faster, mate. Now if you'll excuse me.."

Bunny gestured at the alley and suddenly a yeti appeared from the gloom. It grabbed Jack by his hoodie and shoved him roughly in a sack.

"HEY!" Jack and Lillian yelled at the same time.

"See ya at the Pole," Bunny said to Sandy as Jack was tossed into a portal.

He failed to notice (or ignored) the enraged spirit of spring as he vanished down his rabbit hole. The portal closed after the yeti stepped through it.

"Jack," Lillian said in despair, as her eyes filled with tears.

What had the Easter Bunny done with him?

Just as Lillian was turning to leave, a golden hand reached out and touched Lillian's shoulder. As Lillian faced the Sandman, he gave her a warm smile and a thumbs up.

Lillian sniffled and wiped her eyes.

"Y-you know where Jack is?" she asked Sandy in a small voice.

Sandy's smile slipped a little as he heard Lillian speak. She sounded so small and vulnerable. He knew this sack idea was a terrible one! But he just nodded at Lillian as he transformed his cloud into a two-seater plane for them.

Before he could even think of asking if she wanted to go, she had jumped into the second seat of the plane. Sandy smiled at her eagerness as he settled himself down in the front seat.

Contact!

Author's Note: I couldn't resist Bunny being a little mean there. He'll get better, I promise! How'd you like the end? Sandy to the rescue. Things will deviate more in the next chapter. I can only imagine that the whole Tooth Palace + Jack + Pitch will = super awkward for Jack. I've been thinking about it, and instead of drabbles right after the movie, the fic will continue on. There will be more Pitch drama, I just know it! So the fic will taper off into drabbles eventually, just not for awhile. As always, if you have any ideas, let me know! Next chapter should be up later in the week.