Author's Note: I had so much fun writing this chapter! I love this story arc. We wound up staying a little longer in the Last Easter than I thought we would but that's alright. Poor Jack though. :( I feel so sorry for him. Obviously, he isn't as close to the Guardians in this as he was in their changed timeline with Lillian. As for Father Time, I imagine that where he lives is a bit protected, so perhaps he'd remember things that were going on and he'd be able to set things in motion.

Now.. reviews!

Crossover Junkie: I was going to have Jamie remember things. He kind of has to in order for things to start off like they should. If he forgot, who would be able to let a certain Child of Spring know? We know she has a letter to write after all. ;) Your mentioning of Susan asking Death for advice gave me a lot of ideas, so thanks!

Skypeoplephoenix732: I'm glad that you're enjoying this plot! I am too. And thanks for chiming in. I can tell people must like this story from follows/faves, but if I don't hear anything back it kinda makes me wonder if anyone likes where the story is going.

Chapter Sixty-Five: Jamie's Adventure: Father Time

Current time: Last Easter

Pitch Black was poised to strike, an evil smirk on his gray face, with his yellowish-golden eyes glinting. He was going to win. Not even that annoying Frost or the bratty believers would stop him!

While Jamie was busy talking with Bunny, Pippa sidled up to Jamie. She tugged on his sleeve and gestured off to where the golden sand was starting to form into a sort of whirlwind.

"Look," Pippa said quietly.

Bunny heard her of course but turned to talk to the others on what they should do. He was still rather annoyed that he hadn't gotten his powers back. Being this small was bad for his ego.

Tooth was busy talking a mile a minute as she came up with ways to get believers back so that they would be stronger and -

She paused as her gaze had wandered over to Jack and her eyes widened.

"Jack! Look out!" she suddenly screamed.

Jack ducked out of instinct and cried out with an indignant "Hey!" when a black scythe tore the sleeve of his blue hoodie.

He managed to barely dodge the second swipe from the scythe, but tripped over his feet and fell to the ground. When Jack looked up, Pitch was towering over him while more Nightmares were keeping North, Tooth, and Bunny all busy. Bunny was looking particularly annoyed at having to run away from a Nightmare again.

Jack stared at the scythe that Pitch was wielding and then seemed to remember that he had his staff. He went to freeze Pitch, but before he could do so a golden whip shot out and grabbed Pitch's hand.

Pitch stared at the golden sand whip that had a hold of him before he went flying all over the place as Sandy flung him effortlessly with his dreamsand whip. He then pulled Pitch in towards him and finished him off with a devastating uppercut and Pitch fell to the ground in the background, unconscious and sound asleep, with innocent golden butterflies flying over his head.

"Sandy!" All the Guardians cried out in relief. North had managed to use his swords to take out the remaining Nightmares while the Burgess kids helped out with just touching the black sand, turning it back into golden dreamsand.

Sandy grinned at his friends and tipped a golden bowler hat at them. Then he floated up on his golden cloud and dreamsand flew everywhere. He even made a giant dreamsand brontosaurus and various other dreamsand animals.

Jack couldn't help but grin at the sight and his annoyance at his hoodie being torn and almost dying (again!) went away as he watched his friend work. He glanced at Jamie and smirked.

Soon all the kids were lobbing snowballs at one another thanks to Jack. A snowball flew through the air and hit Bunny square in the face. North burst out laughing at the annoyed look on Bunny's face, especially since Bunny was still a little Pooka kit.

"Why I oughtta.." Bunny grumbled to himself as he shot the kids a look.

Another snowball hit North and North grinned as Jack, Jamie and Monty all pointed fingers at one another.

"You are all on Naughty list!" North laughed as he packed a big snowball and threw it in their direction. Soon all the Guardians were involved in the snowball fight and were having fun.

"You DARE to have fun in my presence!" Pitch had obviously woken up in a bad mood. "I'm the Boogeyman and you will fear me!"

He stalked towards Jamie who was laughing with his friends and reached out to grab Jamie's neck. The Guardians and Jack all saw this and tensed, ready for a fight.

But Jamie and his friends ran right through Pitch, not even seeing him. Pitch clutched at his chest and staggered back a few steps with his eyes wide, looking lost.

Jack's expression changed and he looked a little conflicted. He knew exactly how that felt since it wasn't until recently that anyone took notice of him. It had even taken three hundred years for one boy to be able to see him!

Pitch took in the menacing looks the other Guardians were giving him and for once in his life, he felt afraid. He turned and took off running past some houses and into the woods. When he hit the ice of the lake, he didn't even pause in his running. He was so intent on running away he didn't even notice North and ran smack into him, falling ungracefully backward onto the ice. Bunny stood menacingly on North's shoulder, tiny as ever and sneered at Pitch.

The rest of the Guardians and Jack stood behind North, all with unfriendly looks on their faces. Pitch glanced down in confusion as a quarter went sailing into his hand.

"A quarter?" he asked, but a second later had his answer as Tooth punched him square in the mouth. He flew backward and a tooth fell out onto the ice.

"That was for my fairies!" she said as she glared at Pitch.

Pitch got up to his feet.

"You can't get rid of me," he said trying to sound menacing, but he didn't sound very convincing when his voice trembled a little. But Pitch was nothing if not a master manipulator and he looked smug as he continued. "There will always be fear."

"So what?" North said, looking unconcerned. "As long as one child believes, we will always be there to fight fear."

"Really?" Pitch said as he took in the Nightmares all gathering around the lake. "Then what are they doing here?"

He looked very smug until North glanced around and shrugged.

"They are not my Nightmares, I am not afraid," North said.

The others looked around and not one of them looked even a little afraid.

Pitch's smug look was wiped right off his face at Jack's words next.

"Looks like it's your fear they smell," Jack told Pitch. He didn't look very sorry about it either. Pitch had snapped his staff after all and abandoned him in Antarctica. Even if he did feel a little sorry for Pitch, that didn't mean he was going to help him or anything. This was the Boogeyman!

Pitch stepped backward as the Nightmares advanced. They suddenly turned into swirling black sand and Pitch tried to run away, but it was no use. They caught up and dragged him back down under the bed frame into the pitch darkness of his lair.

"N-nooo..!" Pitch cried out as he scrabbled desperately at the ground. He tried his best, but he just couldn't escape the black sand that had now turned against him. After he was dragged down into the hole of his lair, the bed frame collapsed and the ground closed up by itself, sealing Pitch away in the eternal darkness.

Jack looked up at the full moon that was shining brightly down on them and gave it a half smirk. He knew the Moon had sealed up Pitch's lair. Good riddance!

The other Guardians gathered around Jack and North had a very familiar looking huge book in his hands.

"Are you ready Jack?" he asked. "To make it official?"

Jack didn't need to respond as North launched into the Guardian ceremony.

"..all that we are, and all that we will ever be?"

Jack glanced back as the Burgess kids all wandered up, their eyes lit up with wonder at seeing such a ceremony with Jamie in the lead. Jamie gave Jack a bright-eyed smile and nodded encouragingly at Jack.

"I will," Jack said with a smile at Jamie.

"Then congratulations Jack Frost, for you are now and forevermore a Guardian," North said with a smile as he passed the book off to Tooth who nearly fell out of the air with the weight of it.

North seized Jack, lifting him off his feet but before he could do anything else, Bunny started wriggling on his shoulder.

"Finally!" Bunny cried out as he began to grow.

North chuckled as he wound up in a heap on the ice with a full grown Bunny. Since he was holding Jack at the time, Jack wound up in the heap too.

Jack grinned at Bunny who grinned right back at him. It seemed that just like that, all was forgiven. As North, Bunny, and Jack tried to untangle themselves and get up to their feet, the sleigh made a spectacular landing as all the kids let out loud exclamations at seeing it. North gave Bunny a smirk.

"Everyone loves the sleigh!"

Bunny rolled his eyes* and didn't comment as Sandy set off dreamsand fireworks for the kids. He stepped forward to little Sophie and bent down to her with a gentle smile on his face.

"See you later ya little anklebiter," he said as his green eyes softened. "I'm gonna miss you."

"Bye-bye Bunny," little Sophie said as she patted Bunny's nose.

Bunny rose and headed back to the sleigh with only minimal grumbles about riding in it as he and the other Guardians all piled in.

"You coming Jack?" North called out.

Jack turned to head towards the sleigh when he heard Jamie's disappointed voice.

"You're leaving?" Jamie said, sounding extremely disappointed. "But what if Pitch comes back? What if we stop believing again? If I can't see you - "

"Whoa, whoa!" Jack said as he walked quickly over to Jamie. "Slow down there."

He placed a hand on Jamie's shoulder and knelt down to be more on his level.

"You telling me you stop believing in the moon when the sun comes out?"

Jamie smiled a bit and shook his head.

"No."

"Are you telling me you stop believing in the sun when the clouds block it out?" Jack asked.

Jamie chuckled at the thought.

"No."

Jack gave Jamie's shoulder a comforting squeeze.

"We'll always be there Jamie," Jack said with a smile. As he continued talking, he pointed at Jamie's heart. "And now, we'll always be here. Which kinda makes you a Guardian too."

Jack stood and turned to go, but paused when Jamie called out.

"Jack!"

Jamie ran towards Jack looking concerned and crashed into Jack as Jack turned back around to face him.

Jack had a look of complete shock on his face as Jamie's arms encircled his waist and held on tightly to him. It was the first hug Jack had ever received as a spirit. In three hundred very long years, it was the first physical act of kindness Jack had received. Not only that, but a human was touching him. Feeling slightly overwhelmed Jack's face softened as he hugged Jamie back. It took everything he had not to hug Jamie too fiercely. He kept the hug gentle but brief and soon pulled away. He ran back to the sleigh and jumped onto the side as it took off into the sky.

The kids all stared up in wonder and Jamie waved. Jack waved back with his staff and a single snowflake was formed. With help from Jack, it floated back down to Jamie and landed on the tip of his nose.

Jamie grinned at that.

"Wait a minute," Pippa said. "What about that other Jamie?"


Back on the sleigh, the Guardians were having similar thoughts.

"Normally we would go back to Pole," North explained to Jack. "But now I am thinking we should visit Father Time."

"You guys all hang out at the Pole a lot?" Jack asked with interest. "Wait.. there's a Father Time?!"

Bunny rolled his eyes.

"'Course there's a Father Time ya gumby," he said as he ignored North's haphazard steering. "And we don't hang at the Pole. North needs ta park his sleigh and we normally would go back ta our own homes."

"Oh," Jack said as his face fell a little.

He didn't really have a home to go back to. He doubted any of the Guardians knew, of course. He hardly interacted with any of them except for Sandy, and even then he rarely saw Sandy at his lake. Sandy had seen Jack plenty of times when Jack was sleeping, but Sandy probably hadn't made the leap to think that Jack actually lived at the lake.

"You ok, sweetie?" Tooth asked as she saw Jack's disappointed look.

Jack hitched an all too familiar smirk on his face.

"Sure," he said because he knew he had to answer Tooth. "So why are we going to Father Time's?"

Bunny glanced at Jack with an annoyed expression on his face. He might get along with Jack now, but that didn't mean that Jack had stopped annoying him. Why did this kid ask all these annoying questions? If Bunny hadn't been so annoyed, he might have been able to see through Jack's smirk.

But he was annoyed and not interested in noticing anything else.

"So he can tell us what that kid was up ta," Bunny said as he rolled his eyes. "It's not hard ta figure out."

"If this other Jamie's from some other time," Jack said as he thought out loud, "would Father Time know what he's up to?"

"Father Time has his ways - " Bunny started to say, but the end of 'ways' came out as more of a shriek as the sleigh suddenly went through a portal that North had created with a snowglobe while they had been talking.

When they appeared, Bunny was clutching his chest.

"A little warning next time!" he called out angrily to North as he fought his usual nausea.

Jack looked startled to see that they were in London, England.

"Uh.." Jack said as he saw Big Ben looming up at them. "Father Time lives here?"

"You know what to do, Tooth!" North said with a grin at Jack.

"Got it!" Tooth called out as she flew up from the sleigh.

She flew right at Big Ben and grabbed the minute hand, spinning it around with her momentum and not stopping until it hit exactly midnight.

The deafening sound of Big Ben chiming had Bunny wincing.

"Here we go!" North said as he urged his reindeer to fly right at Big Ben. Tooth hopped in the sleigh and sat behind North with Sandy as Sandy clapped delightedly. He always did like the sleigh rides.

"N-North!" Jack cried out in alarm as they were clearly headed right for the clock face.

North only chuckled while Jack cringed in fear as it looked like they were going to crash. Jack had closed his eyes as he prepared for the crash, but no crash came.

When he opened his eyes, he saw that they were in a very vast room that had a lot of different kinds of clocks on the walls. Jack's jaw dropped as he stared at it all.

"Wh.. what? " he said in complete surprise.

North grinned again as he got out of the sleigh, which had landed right in the room.

"Makes sense for Father Time to live in clock, no?"

Jack shook his head and stared at all the clocks on the walls. There were so many!

Father Time walked up behind them all, smiling at them.

"Let me guess," he said, causing Jack to jump in surprise and whirl around. "You want to ask me about that boy."

Jack blinked.

"How.. how could you possibly know that?!"

Father Time chuckled.

"I am Father Time after all," he said. "I have my ways of viewing past and future events."

Jack stared in awe at the grandfatherly Father Time.

"You can see the future?"

Father Time nodded.

"Time is complicated. Everything you do can cause a different future event to take place. I can see all these events, but it is difficult to see what path our story is going to take. Sometimes it takes a darker turn, other times it is quite peaceful."

"Why would ya give that Bennett kid some of yer hourglasses?" Bunny demanded. "He's messin' with time! It's dangerous!"

Father Time nodded again.

"Yes, he's certainly been popping up quite a bit. Would you like to see?"

The Guardians indicated they would, so Father Time led them all to his Room of Possibilities.

Jack looked around at all the mirrors with his mouth open. There were so many! It was unbelievable!

"If you see here," Father TIme said as he led them over to a particular set of mirrors. "From about 1968 to 1978 or so, that boy seems to pop up quite a bit."

The Guardians all stared at the mirrors that Father Time gestured to, and they did see Jamie Bennett in quite a few of them.

Bunny furrowed his brow.

"Why's he keep talkin' to some girl?" he asked. Then he paused as he looked at the girl. "Wait a minute.. I know her! That's that Parker kid. She's a strong believer. I never had a kid who was so old still believe in me."

North looked perplexed.

"Lillian Parker? She is always on Naughty List, no? I am always hearing she is not listening to her father."

Bunny shrugged.

"I don't know about that. I just know she loves findin' the googies on Easter. She tucks 'em into her pockets to save fer later."

Tooth stared at the mirrors looking alarmed and concerned.

"Bunny.. Jack.. Are you getting some really weird memories?"

"About Jamie?" Jack asked.

Tooth nodded, as she watched Jamie Bennett converse with an older Lillian in one mirror.

"Yeah," Jack said. "I always thought nobody could see me until today, but.. now I'm remembering Jamie saw me a long time ago. I think he told that Lillian kid about me too."

"What is Jamie Bennett up to?" North asked in amusement as he looked at the mirrors.

Bunny stared at one particular mirror.

"Is.. is he talkin' ta Pitch?!" Bunny loudly exclaimed.

The Guardians all stared at one another and then stared at the mirror Bunny was looking at in shock. There was Jamie Bennett, sitting outside a forest and talking to none other than Pitch Black.

"Lillian Parker, hm?" Father Time mused to himself. "I'll have to remember that."


Current time: 1974

Jamie Bennett suddenly appeared in a whirlwind of silvery sparkles. He staggered backward and felt the world tilt as he fell over to the ground. He groaned as he felt awful. Was it possible to have time sickness? Because he thought he had it.

He lay in the grass, just breathing in the scent and trying his hardest to settle his stomach. As he lay there, he wondered what time he wound up in. He remembered Bunny kept shouting at him to count the turns, but it was such a blur. He knew the hourglass had turned a few more times after he dropped it, but he didn't know how many exactly.

Even if he somehow still wound up in the correct time, he still didn't have a clue on what he was supposed to do. Did he even appear in the right spot? What if he was lost in time?! What if he couldn't find his way back! Oh, if only the Tooth Fairy hadn't messed him up!

As he lay there panicking, he failed to hear the footsteps walking up to him. Jamie found himself suddenly sitting up as he heard the smooth voice start talking, however. Jamie was careful to tuck the necklaces into his shirt this time before anyone could see them.

"My, what a lot of fear you have," the smooth voice commented. "There are so many things you fear, it's difficult to tell just what it is you are most afraid of."

Jamie's eyes widened in horror as he looked up into the face of Pitch Black.

While Jamie was frozen in fear, another voice piped up. This voice made Jamie shudder since it reminded him of coffins and tombstones. Every syllable fell heavily, like coffin lids closing.

"Pity," the deep voice said. "I wasn't expecting you to make it."

Jamie turned his head and saw a tall figure in a dark cloak, wielding a huge scythe. As Jamie literally stared at Death, he shrieked in terror.


*When I went back and watched the very end of the movie, I know Bunny makes up with North about the sleigh thing, but I had already written that part and thought it was funnier. So I kept it the way it was. I wanted my story version to be similar to the end of the movie, but I didn't want it exactly word-for-word, so that's why things are slightly different. I thought it would be too boring if I just copied everything directly from the movie. I also don't like how Jack clearly feels sorry for the Boogeyman, but then that totally changes. I also don't like the confrontation at the lake, since it feels like all the Guardians are ganging up on Pitch. He never gets a chance for redemption and is just locked away forever. Poor Pitch!

Author's Note: Yes, there is another cliffhanger. I can't help it, I swear! I just find these really good stopping points.. Ahem. Anyway, I thought since Jamie is getting into all these harrowing situations that it might be fun to have Death turn up again. Pitch decided to show up again too because Jamie was so afraid. But since Jamie's fears were all jumbled, Pitch can't exactly hear what Jamie's afraid of. Which I suppose would be a good thing for now. It will be interesting to see if this Pitch is totally evil or not since Lillian never came to him. She helped him to be softer but on the other hand.. He did take her in all on his own, so he wasn't completely evil. If you'll remember, he didn't get more evil until later, when he started experimenting with the black sand, and that didn't take place until Lillian was an invisible student in high school.

I'm not sure if we'll visit the Last Easter time to see what's going on with the Guardians again. I just wanted them to visit Father Time, so Father Time would have a heads up on Jamie's visiting. If you're wondering why Father Time lives in Big Ben, I was inspired by the cartoon Peter Pan (where they all land on the hands of the clock) and the book version of Kiki's Delivery Service. There's a part in the book where Kiki has to manually move the hands of the big clock tower, and she flies as fast as she can at the clock and whirls the minute hand around. That is what Tooth did in that part there.

Anyway, sorry for the long author's note and let me know what you think of the story! If you have any plot suggestions, let me know. Things are going to get even more interesting from now on!