Jamie felt like he was preparing for a Titan attack. His palms were sweating as he paced his carpeted floor. Jack had a hand clenched tightly around his staff from where he sat on the edge of the bed. They'd gone over the plan multiple times, so Jamie didn't know why they were acting so nervous. Jack had good reason to be. If this went the wrong way, Jamie might be pressured into staying here with Pippa. He knew there was always the risk of losing him, but he would hate himself if he let him go so quick and needlessly. Jack's nerves were justified, and as for Jamie… well, he just hoped he wouldn't be made fun of again.

The doorbell rang too soon. Jamie's legs worked automatically as he went downstairs to let Pippa in.

"Hi," She greeted, her nails dug into the strap of her bag. She was a bit on edge, too, which made Jamie feel at least a little better.

"Hey. Um, let's go upstairs." He didn't look her in the eyes as he led the way into his bedroom. He shut the door behind them and saw Jack straighten up, staring at Pippa with an expressionless face.

"You've redecorated." Pippa noted casually, glancing around the room at the multiple band posters. "Guess I haven't been here in a while, huh?"

"It has been a long time…" He attempted to keep up the small talk. Jack hadn't said anything yet. He just sat there, watching Pippa as if she would explode at any moment.

Jamie cringed when all she offered was a hum in agreement with silence to follow. How long had it been since they had an actual conversation? Two, three years? Jamie couldn't remember. In the silence as Pippa continued to examine the posters he was reminded of how much of a terrible person he really was. He didn't know how to continue a conversation with Pippa because he… he really didn't know anything about her anymore! He called her his best friend, but they'd never actually hung out alone in years. Whenever Pippa had finally managed to drag him out of the house, she'd always had another friend tagging along. Jamie suspected it was because she feared the frequent lulls in conversations between them and needed a backup friend to change the subject.

Bet she wishes Claude was here right now. Jamie thought, clearing his throat for the umpteenth time after an apathetic "Yeah." in response to Pippa's comments on his choice in decorations. Hell, I wish he was here. This is the most awkward silence I've ever had to experience. Why can't I say something important?! He finally decided it was time to get on topic. Why he brought her here, and all… His words caught in his throat, though, when Pippa slung her bag from her shoulder and onto the floor, sitting down on Jamie's bed and causing Jack to move away quickly to the windowsill.

"It's freezing in here," She exhaled, rubbing her arms through her sweatshirt. "Is your room normally twenty degrees colder than the rest of the house?" She laughed a bit and Jamie did his best to return it. He glanced at Pippa again, only this time noticing things that caught his eye.

He felt a lump drop through his stomach when he saw how much Pippa had… grown. It had undoubtedly been a rather obvious observation, but only now Jamie was starting to really notice it. When she had been standing, she was only a few inches shorter than him. Her facial features were soft, even when knit in slight nervousness. She had curves that proportionately complimented her thin physique and hair that freely draped over her shoulder, now that she wasn't constantly wearing a hat. Her modest breasts were held tightly to her body as her arms crossed over them as protection against the cold.

Jamie swallowed down his uncomfortable feelings with every observation he made. When had Pippa become so… womanly? When did she stop being the little kid he had snowball fights with every day? Jamie suddenly felt very self-conscious of his own body. He felt too tall. His chest seemed too broad and his arms too long. He… he hadn't grown up as well, had he? In all the time he spent clinging to his childhood, Jamie hadn't noticed just how much of an adult he was turning into.

The realization terrified him.
Pippa cleared her throat. "So," Her tone lost its fake casualness. "Are you just going to stand there, or are you gonna start explaining things to me?"

He was shaken from his thoughts, recovering quickly to sit down next to her. Not too close, but not so far that would make it seem like he was doing his best to get away from her. He was too good at the latter.

"Right, sorry… I just…" C'mon, idiot. Just be honest for once in your fucking life. "I just don't really know how to tell you in a way that won't make you hate me."

Her expression softened and her trademark concern returned. "I could never hate you, Jamie."

He gave a small smile. "Thanks." Pippa, you fucking martyr. Jamie bit his lip, continuing back on topic. "So… I guess I should start from the beginning, huh?"

"That would help." She nodded, reclining a bit.

"Right, well…" Words sure are difficult things. "I… uh. Okay. After I met with you behind the school and you left, I, uh, ran into an old friend. He brought me back to my house and then after a bit of talking I… went back to his place and I stayed there for a few days…" Had his tongue always been so dry?

She waited, as if more words in the form of an explanation could possibly make it out of his mouth alive. "…That's it?" Pippa laughed. "Damn, Jamie, if that was all that happened, you coulda told me sooner! You nearly gave me a heart attack, jeez."

"That's…ah…" Jamie finally mustered up the courage to look at Jack, who just stared back at him. The Guardian shrugged his shoulders forward and raised an eyebrow; "Aaaand?"

"That's not… There's a little more to it…"

She focused. "Oh?"

"The… uh, the guy I was with… well…" Jamie's throat was contracting. He looked Pippa in the eyes for a millisecond. Her worry running back through her features, she would definitely not be expecting what he was about to say.

"I was with Jack, Pippa. Jack Frost." Damn it. Damn it, shit, cock biting motherfucker, shit dammit fuuuuuck! He instantly wished he hadn't said a god damn thing. A flush of emotions overcame Pippa, and he read every one on her face as they transitioned in a span of 0.6 seconds; confusion, disbelief, horror, apprehension, accusation, rage. Then just as quickly, she was back to concern.

"J-Jamie…" She stared for a long time. "That's not…" She recovered surprisingly fast, just not in the direction Jamie wanted. A cold smile fell on her lips as she leaned over and swiftly picked up her bag. "Wow. That's just. Wow." Anger. Hurt. "Here I thought you wanted me over here to have a serious conversation. Fuck me for thinking you might actually be honest for once."

Jamie panicked. Fuck dammit shit. He stood quickly, taking hold of her shoulder before she could storm out of the room. "No, Pipp—"

"Y'know what, no!" She smacked his hand away. "I'm sick and tired of this bullshit, Jamie Bennett!"

"I'm not lying!" He was getting desperate, blocking the door. "You think I'm crazy, but I swear!"

"No, you are crazy!" She'd finally cracked. "I'd tried to ignore it for years, Jamie, but… this is the last straw. I don't know why I even bother caring. You never acknowledge anything I ever do for you!"

"Okay," Jamie felt anger heating his face. "No offense, but you haven't really done anything for me. Yeah, you worried about me and asked me to hang out all the time, but after that your efforts just stopped."

She balled her fists. "No! Are you forgetting about when you were in the hospital I—"

"You stood by my bedside every day. Yeah. Thanks for that." He spat sarcasm. "Y'know, it was nice to get that kind of support after I try to kill myself. Heaven forbid you care about me before all that and prevent it from happening in the first place!"

Pippa faltered for a millisecond. "I didn't know anything was wrong! You wouldn't reach out to me! Or anyone, for that matter."

He let out a laugh of disbelief. "You think I could trust anyone enough to do that? Everywhere I turned people were laughing and calling me crazy for believing in the Guardians. My own mother even threatened to put me in a mental institution!"

"Well, if you're hell-bent on the idea that you ran away with Jack Fucking Frost, I'd say you belonged there!"

"Y'know I can't say I like this side of you, Pippa." Jamie's nervous attitude seemed like a distant memory. "I much prefer the version where you pretend to comfort me just to look like the good guy." His words were sharp; he surprised himself with his quick responses, just glad he wasn't stumbling over his own tongue anymore.

"I wasn't pretending!" She was dangerously close.

"Well maybe you were genuine the first few times I had a mental breakdown, but then you gave up!" He didn't know who he was trying to fool by saying he thought Pippa his best friend. The truth had finally come out. "It was like you did just enough to make it seem like you were the innocent savior, but not enough to actually do something about the situation."

It was like all the years of built-up aggression toward her, toward his family, his friends, school, society, and life in general had finally resurfaced. It broke through the safety of his apathetic shield. His face grew hot. His anger boiled the blood rushing through his veins. Hot. Had his skin always felt like it was melting? Too hot.

Pippa didn't have a response to that. Of course he was right, damn him. She broke their eye contact. "I'm done talking with you." She snapped. "Get out of my way."

She tried to push past Jamie, who was still blocking the door.

"No!" He held his ground. "You can't just walk away from this. It's not gonna stop being an issue if you ignore it, Pippa. Haven't you had enough experience with that?"

"Jamie—" She tried again in between her words, putting both her hands on Jamie's side and pushing harder. "Stop it! Let—me—through!" He wouldn't budge, getting a proper grip on the door frame to keep him locked there.

"No! You can't keep ignoring me!" He was being assertive—no. He was downright aggressive. Had this side of him always been there? His fights with Jack never got him this upset. Why did Pippa make him so much angrier?

Her screaming was borderline panicky. "You can't trap me here, Ja–mie–Benn–ett!" She gave stronger pushes to break her words. "Fucking… HELL! C'mon!" He was too strong. "Let me OUT!" Her fist raised, ready to punch him in the jaw as hard as she could.

But something stopped her.

Pippa let out a yelp. She jumped back about five feet, retracting her hand and staring at it. It was covered in a thin layer of ice. She choked on her speech. "W-wha… What the fuck?!"

Jamie looked just as surprised as she did. Only for a second, though. He was so involved in his argument with Pippa he'd forgotten Jack was still there. He moved protectively in front of Jamie, facing Pippa with his staff pointed at her. He'd been watching their exchange with keen interest, his guard up and on high alert. When things started to get physical, he'd stood, moving closer to the two teenagers in case they took it too far, which Pippa had almost done.

"That's enough." Jack's expression was dark as he directed his threatening tone at Pippa, although she couldn't hear or see him. Jamie knew that if she could, she'd be completely terrified.

She was still examining her hand, applying pressure with her left to warm it. "What…What the fuck was that?" She repeated. Her words meant to sound violent, but her confusion and fear kept the question shaking.

"…Jack…" Jamie whispered, exchanging a look with his Guardian. He didn't know whether to thank or scold him.

"What?" Pippa hadn't heard him.

Jamie turned to her. Fuck it. She already thought he was crazy. "It was Jack, Pippa. Jack Frost is literally right in front of you and if you still believed in him, you'd be able to see that he is fervently pissed off at you right now."

Her expression was back to enraged. "You're fucking insane!" She stormed forward two steps, intent on leaving for good now that Jamie was finally out of the way. She was stopped immediately.

Pippa let out a piercing scream when a jet of ice slammed into her, knocking her back and onto the floor. Ice covered her entire body, her lips had turned blue and her face showed the beginning signs of frostbite.

"Alright, Jack!" Jamie stood between them. Pippa was shaking, staring up at Jamie with absolute terror in her eyes. "I think you've scared her enough."

"I'd appreciate it," The winter guardian looked directly at Pippa with a malicious expression. "if you stopped calling him crazy."

"She can't hear you!" Jamie reminded him, exasperated. "Honestly, if she doesn't believe in you after all this I say we just fucking give up."

"Does she need more proof?" Jack tightens his grip on his staff, pointing it at her without even looking.

"NO!"

Both of them stopped. They looked down at Pippa, eyes wide.

"I… I believe in you…" She was staring up at Jack, tears starting to form in her fearful eyes. "Just… please don't shoot me with ice again."

The two boys shared a look before either of them spoke.

Jack put on a fake smile and extended a hand to the girl on the floor. "Hiya, Pippa. I don't think we've ever been properly introduced. I'm Jamie's boyfriend, Jack Frost. Yell at him again and I'll freeze you so hard you won't thaw out for another two thousand years."

"Seriously." Jamie pressed his palm against his face. "That's seriously how you're gonna make your entrance?"

"Just laying down the rules, Jamie." Jack retracted his hand when Pippa didn't accept it. He straightened, throwing his staff over his shoulder and keeping on his faux calm expression.

"I…" Pippa gaped from her position on the floor. She was torn between awe and fear. "I'm sorry."

"No big deal." Jack waved away her apology casually, but it was obvious he didn't accept it.

"No, really." She finally stood, looking back from Jamie to the white-haired spirit currently picking at his fingernails, nonchalantly ignoring her. "I am… genuinely sorry." She spoke to Jamie then bowed her head. "For not believing you, for yelling, for calling you crazy, for almost punching you… oh god I'm fucking terrible."

"See? She said it this time." Jack commented, but Jamie elbowed him in the ribs.

"And you!" She pointed at Jack. "You're actually… real! You're like… a thing! Like, an actual real thing! I can't fucking believe it! You're like here, and you're…. you're fuckin'…here, and…you're fucking… y-you're fucking Jamie?!" She jerked her thumb in the brunet's direction.

The two boys snapped to attention. "Woah there, sister," Jack held up a hand.

Jamie cut in. "I-it's a long story, okay… ah…" He swallowed. Now that Pippa was actually willing to listen, he thought a further explanation might be in order. "Actually, the… reason he's here with me now is that we're kinda… buying time…Well, making the time we do have more enjoyable, actually."

"You lost me." She shook her head. "What do you mean 'the time you have'?"

"Something's gonna happen on the twenty second." Jack gave shortly.

"More specifically, something involving me."

His serious tone made Pippa even more curious. "Something… bad?"

Jamie and Jack shared another look. "We don't know." Jamie said honestly, shaking his head. "There's the possibility that the Man in the Moon—he's like, the leader of the Guardians—is going to want me turn into an Essence. Which is basically just a Guardian, minus the title."

Blatant confusion on her face, Pippa tried to make sense of this new information. "That can happen? I thought Guardians were just like… born that way, or something… Not that I really gave it any thought, but…"

"We are, in a way," Jack was leaning against his staff, still not looking her in the eyes. "Born like this. The Man in the Moon kinda knows everything; he sees the potential in a human child and waits until they do something to prove said potential to turn them into a proper Essence, then later, a Guardian, if they qualify. He saw something in Jamie, now we just have to wait until his eighteenth birthday to see if he does something to prove it…."

"This is all…" Pippa ran a hand through her hair anxiously. "Really overwhelming, actually… I… wow."

"Sorry…" Jamie didn't really attempt to make his apology sound sincere. "You did want to know why I was gone. That's why."

She looked at him. She didn't quite get it yet. "Because you were… preparing, or …?"

"Like he said," Jack didn't let Jamie answer. He'd finally looked up from the details of his staff. His blue eyes met her brown ones. "We're just enjoying the time we have before it happens. The only thing we're sure of is we have four days until something happens. We can't prepare for anything, unless we somehow figure out a way to stop time." Jack gave that a moment of thought, as if the idea of time travel seemed like a legitimate solution. All they really needed was a police box—

"We've just been hanging out, honestly." Jamie chimed in, shrugging his shoulders forward. "The irony is that the few days before a potential disaster have been the most content time of my life."

Jack smiled a bit to himself before getting back on topic. "And anyway, if I'm right, there won't even be a disaster. The accusation that Jamie has Essence Potential was a fifty-fifty possibility. The Man in the Moon knows a lot of things, but even after centuries of watching over Earth and its inhabitants he can't predict our future. And if it turns out that MiM's right and Jamie will become an Essence, I'll be there to make sure nothing hurts him."

"Hurts him?" Pippa's attention rose. "Is this going to be dangerous?" She turned to the brunet, who avoided her eye contact.

"You don't need to worry." Jack took an instinctive step closer to Jamie. "I've got it under control." His words had a threatening undertone.

Pippa was about to protest, but luckily Jamie backed his Guardian up. "He's right, Pippa. I'll be fine. 'I trust Jack with my life', and all that clichéd action movie crap." He chuckled.

She was very quiet, thinking over all she'd been told, the confusion slowly melting off her face. "No, I… I know you'll be okay. I trust him too, y'know."

Jack's defenses lowered in surprise. "You do?"

"Yeah." She nodded with affirmation. "If you mean so much to Jamie, I guess I've got no choice but to believe you'll keep him safe." She smirked a little. "Besides, you did protect us from the Nightmare King seven years ago. It's only smart to trust a superhero."

Jack didn't react for a moment, but eventually managed out a grin in return. Jamie felt ecstatic. After all these years, it was the most incredible relief to finally be taken seriously. He couldn't stay mad at her, hell he wanted to flat-out hug her. Their conversation over, they said goodbye. Pippa promised to keep Jack a secret; for once the Guardian preferred to only be seen by Jamie right now. She'd apologized for her misbehavior for the millionth time before she finally left.

Jamie shut the door behind her, waiting until he heard the slam of the front door closing to exhale. He then let a grin slide up his face, turning to Jack.

"We did it." He laughed with his Guardian before tackling him onto the bed in a tight hug. He fell on top of Jack.

"We did it." The winter spirit repeated, chuckling at Jamie's adorable smile. "Wasn't so bad, was it?"

"Nope." Jamie nuzzled his forehead into Jack's neck. "Thanks for stopping us when you did." He gave him a light kiss on the cheek.

The Guardian smiled into the action. "You're welcome."

The two of them lay there a few moments, his hands wrapped around the teenager's waist while Jamie played with Jack's snow-white hair.

The Guardian let out a big sigh of exaggerated relief. "No more Pippa."

Jamie chuckled, adding his own "No more school."

Jack turned on an innocently casual voice. "Good grief, what are we gonna do all weekend?" He slowly moved his hand to the hem of Jamie's shirt, letting his fingers lightly grip Jamie's torso.

"Dunno." Jamie just-as-casually let his lips graze the skin below Jack's ear. "My mom's gonna be at work almost all weekend…" The teenager moved smoothly, sitting up and swinging his leg around Jack's lap to straddle him. He leaned down, twirling Jack's hoodie string between his fingers and whispering in his ear. "We can do whatever we want."

Jack grinned at this as Jamie swooped in, hooking the Guardian's mouth with a series of deep kisses.

To say Jack was looking forward to the rest of the weekend would be a complete understatement. He'd been waiting all day for this.

hey did u guys know theres a link to my tumblr on my profile and you can totally follow me at any time 100% free yeah wow what a concept

i love you all tell your friends about this story kay bye i'm goin to Warped Tour