-I apologize for the late post. On the weekdays updates may be a bit slower, especially near thursday and friday. Enjoy-

-A Small Town in Ireland-

Almost...almost...there! She caught a snowflake on her tongue through much maneuvering and cursing. It fell, cold and almost weightless, and melted onto her tongue as she smiled. She stood on a bank of snow, looking slightly down at the village before her, tiny houses with beautiful yards and little children out running and laughing on the icy streets. She balled her hands up in her pockets after pulling the grey hood on over her head, tiny snowflakes drifting down and landing on her face and shoulders.

It had been a week today that she'd run from him. Three days since the incident. And while she didn't feel one-hundred percent, she'd never actually felt one-hundred percent, so she decided that she was doing okay. She hadn't yet grown comftorble with being alone, but she also hadn't seen any nightmares for three days, and it was a beautiful winter, and she was alive. She was taking positives in tiny increments.

Anna was watching two children race to see who could slide down the icy road the farthest without falling down. She saw the girl skid and take the boy down with her, both tumbling and ending up plowing into the snowbank below. A laugh came from her, throwing her head back as the kids scuddled out, their own chorus of giggles joining Anna's.

"Kids are kinda funny, huh?"

"Jesus Christ!"

The voice came from nowhere, or what Anna had percieved as nowhere, and made her entire body jolt backwards, heart stopping painfully and causing her to stumble backwards. And she would have fallen sideways into the street below had a very, very cold hand not shot out and grabbed her arm, pulling her forward in a second and balancing her. Eyes wide, panting, Anna looked at the person who had frightened her.

And recieved her second unwelcome shock when she saw that it was the white-haired boy from three nights ago.

"Hey, don't look so excited to see me!" He joked, but Anna couldn't laugh right now. Not when a thousand reasons for this boy being here were flashing through her mind. She took another step back to balance herself, keeping her eyes on him and tilting her head.

"I don't even think I know who you are."She retorted, and he faked insult, putting a hand dramatically to his chest and scoffing.

"I'm insulted! I really am! I know you aren't exacty the socialite of this side of the people-spectrum, I mean it did take me three days to find you, but really! I'm Jack Frost, Guardian of Fun, the absolute and literally coolest guy ever." He explained, leaning on the staff, mischief and humor dancing in his eyes. She tried not to smile, but this boy was making it a bit hard to remember why she shouldn't still be there. He knew him. He knew Nicholas, he was a Guardian, so he had to know...

Wait.

"Hold on, you've been...looking for me?" She reiterated, suddenly every alarm in her head going off at once. Jack Frost, the boy, maybe sensed this, because he immediately held out a hand and his eyes went wide, his tone a touch more serious now.

"Not, like, in a sinister kinda way! Alright, maybe 'sinister' isn't the best word. Um, uh, listen, don't run away okay? It took me a long time to find you and I'm just doing this all for a really close friend. You don't know me and I really don't know you, kind of, in a sense...I'm doing really bad at this, aren't I?"

With a confused expression, Anna gave a slow nod. The flustered Guardian ran his fingers through his hair and took in a breath, trying to compose himself. In all honesty, she didn't think he'd thought this through past his opening remarks. And all at once, her trepidation towards this boy slowly filtered out. His reasons and intentions still kept her on edge, but of the handful of other people like her, who were gifted in the same respect, he was by far the least intimidating.

And afterall, he didn't look a day older than sixteen, possibly seventeen.

"Alright,"He finally said after a pause, "I just need you to hear me out, okay?" Anna paused this time, sliding her hands back into her jean pockets and shaking off her hood to give her time to think. Then nodded.

"Alright, Frosty..."She swallowed, finding her breath, "...This is about..."And it was then that she realized something. She had to say his name. His name that she knew in her bones, the name she used to use daily, the name that jumped out at her in the night when she woke up sweating and shaking and terrified. This name that she hadn't said in centuries. She swallowed again and took in a pained breath, trying to hide everything on the outside. "...This is about North, isn't it?"

North. There, easier. Not Nicholas, not Nick, North. North she could do for now, that was easier than anything else.

Jack nodded his head towards the street, asking in a calmer voice,

"Walk and talk?" Anna liked this boy. Walking was easier than standing. It gave an excuse not to look in the eye, and she would already have momentum if she had to haul ass out of there. So, Anna nodded and make her way clumsily down the snowbank, only to look back and see him caught up in some isolated wind current, drifting easily to the ground like a little snowflake.

Snowflake. In a strange moment, she thought that she liked that name for him.

"My lady."He offered his arm jokingly, and Anna did all she could from not scoffing at him, shoving the boy and walking forward. She had hoped he wouldn't follow somehow, but then heard his footsteps slapping the ground next to her. It was a strange sound, and when she looked down she saw a pair of bare feet next to her old red boots.

"Jeez, Snowflake, aren't your feet...oh, winter spirit. Duh."She corrected herself, and he laughed as he swung the staff across his shoulders.

"Yeah, the cold doesn't bite me so much. But, getting back on track, my shoeless feet are the least important subject. You, my mysterious friend, are today's topic." He dodged a few kids as they ran by, and while Anna really did want to stay on topic in order to move past this ordeal, she was taken aback very abruptly.

"They can't see you?" She didn't mean for it to sound so surprised, and immediately tried to take the words back when Jack gave her a calm smile and shrug.

"More and more kids are, but it's taking awhile. I mean, in North America? Tons of kids, I get mobbed in grocery stores. Really, I'm like a Kardashian!" She bit her lip, but still snorted anyway, shaking her head and lifting her foot up as another very, very small boy ran under it. "I take it they don't see you, either?"

"No, only a handful ever have...and that was quite a long time ago."She explained, both of them continuing down the street into a brightly lit area, Christmas lights hanging from roofs and mailboxes.

"Back when you knew North?"

Oh, wow, okay. That hurt a bit more than she thought it would, and covered the sudden pang by clearing her throat and nodding. So he knew some things. But how much, and how accurate, she wasn't sure. Had North told him about her as a monster? Had he told Jack how she betrayed and left the people who needed her?...To be honest, that wouldn't even be the worst of what she'd done, except that North had no idea what the worst really was.

"I'm new, in case you couldn't tell, so before you get to thinking that I have any age-old prejudices against you, I don't. I just know what North told me, after everyone saw you that night three nights ago. He was...kind of out of it, you know? I don't think you two have talked in awhile." He paused, and Anna almost smiled at the understatement. Her hands found their way back into her pockets as a cold breeze blew by, chilling her face.

"What rendition of the story did he tell you?"She asked.

"Huh?"

"Good or bad? I don't think North can ever really talk bad about a lot of people, but man, I wouldn't blame him..." She bit her tongue to keep from going on, and recovered awkwardly, "...So, good or bad?"

"...Do you- do you think North's angry at you?" Jack sounded incredulous, and Anna turned to him, both stopping slowly to look at the other in confusion. Jack leaned one hand on the staff and Anna looked him up and down, not understanding why he sounded so...shocked. And that he was actually waiting for an answer.

"Yes, yes I do. What exactly did he tell you happened?"She demanded, knowing that any rendition of the story wasn't flowery or delicate. It was harsh and terrible, and it was about a girl who destroyed everything around her.

"He told me you were given a gift, from the Man in the Moon."Jack spoke with a soft voice and a sympathetic face, one that let Anna know he was much older than he appeared, "And that you could save things from dying. And that you did. He told me your parents were sick, and so were you, but you were given a chance to do something amazing-"

"Is that what he told you?" She sharply interrupted him, her voice acidic and bitter, shaking her head. Jack was surprised, blinking fast as she went on. "He told you I had a gift, and I could save things? That's cute. And let me guess, he didn't leave out how I used that gift, the lovely little flipside that Manny didn't feel like sharing with me."

She didn't know this boy. She'd hardly spoken to him for more than a few minutes. And yet here she was, in the middle of a street of oblivious children, anger and fear and anxiety that had balled up inside of her finally coming undone, lashing out on this poor, innocent boy. And she tried to stop herself, but she couldn't. She heard what he'd said, but had to get out her own words. Had to hear them, instead of keeping them inside of her.

"Did he tell you how I was so insecure about my own redemption that I lashed out at him? Did he ever tell you that, since I didn't know what the flipside of my gift was, I could have easily killed him dozens of times? Or how about this: He ever tell you that I ran away, and people died because I couldn't handle myself? Because that's what happened Jack, and let me tell you this, you can't sugarcoat something like that.

"I ran away from him, the only person who ever took care of me. And from the people who needed me. So tell me, Jack, really, why are you here?"

She let out a breath, biting the inside of her cheek and mentally screaming. This boy, this kind and funny and clumsy boy, had been nothing but nice to her, and now how did she look? Awful, rude, a thousand other things that she could think of. She had to get it out, had to alleivitate that pressure building inside of her...she just wished it hadn't been on Jack.

Anna couldn't face him, turning away and looking at the cobblestone road, foot grinding into the ground and deciding to leave, just in the same instance that he spoke.

"I get it, okay? Really, I do."

"How? Jack, seriously, I just...I-"

"Make a mess wherever you go?"

She looked up at him, surprised to see him giving a kind-hearted smirk and that same sad look in his eyes. Like he did understand. He kept going before she could talk, before she could run, before she could lash out again.

"I didn't even know what my powers were for when I started. For 300 years, MiM never said a word to me, nothing other than my name. And then a lot of bad stuff happened, some of it my fault, when the Nightmare King rose up awhile back. Did you hear about that?" He asked, and Anna tried so hard not to look pained. She nodded non-comittaly. "Yeah, well, the charming Pitch Black tried to turn me against the Guardians. He tried to get me to help him spread fear and darkness and cold.

"And I almost gave in. So I know what it's like to feel like you've done everything wrong and nothing can be right again. But it can. I mean, look at me! Dashingly hansome Guardian of Fun, just add water."

And she wanted to tell him. She wanted to tell this boy who she barely knew that he was so much better than she was. That he was stronger and kinder and better. He'd been tempted, he said that he almost gave in, and she just wanted to scream it, wanted to shout at the top of her lungs that he had way too high an opinion of her. Because he had almost given into Pitch Black. And she had given in.

No 'almost'.

"Anna, North told us what happened the day you ran away. And I can't speak for the others, but I can speak for North and I when I say that we understand why you made that choice. You were scared, we all get scared. You probably more rightfully so, I mean that's a lot to throw on someone's shoulders...but you deserve to be happy again." Jack tried, hands tight on the staff, frost designs feathering out across it.

"...Why are you here, Jack?"Anna asked suspiciously, and he took in a deep breath.

"North means a lot to me, to all the Guardians. And I think you're a really cool person. And I think that you two should meet again." He spit out three sentences almost all at once, and because he was thinking, he jumped in front of Anna and stood strongly, not hostile but perfectly ready to block her from moving any which way. And to say that her chest didn't tighten, to say that she didn't pull in a breath, would be lying. But to say that she also hadn't expected that to be a possibility, that would also be a lie.

Her answer was already on her tongue before Jack finished his last sentence, and it came out fast and deciding.

"No."

"What? Why?"

"Give it some thought, Snowflake, I'm sure it'll come to you." Anna's tone wasn't as harsh as it had been, but now barriers were being set up and she was itching for a way out of this conversation.

"Oh, come on! It's been, what, centuries? You can't still be angry at him!"He exclaimed, and Anna had turned to make her way back down the street when his words stopped her cold. She slowly turned back, brow furrowed and mouth open, tilting her head and asking incredulously,

"Wait...I'm not the one who's angry in this mess. You think I'm angry at...?"She stopped, realizing that he was serious. That he thought Anna could ever possibly be justifiably angry about anything. When everything was her fault, when everything rested on her inadequacy, he thought she was the angry one. "Jack, maybe you misheard North, because there's no way you got me being angry out of what happened."

Jack straightened up a bit, realization dawning across his face as Anna turned away and began to walk. She hoped he wouldn't, but Jack followed quickly, hovering inches from the ground and keeping in front of her, trying to catch her wandering eyes as he spoke.

"Hold on, if you're not angry, you think North's angry? Is that why you're running away?"

"I am not-...actually, you know what? You can have that one. I'm running away, alright? Like a teenager that hasn't seen centuries pass. And it's kind of the one thing I'm sort of good at doing, so if you would please excuse me..." She tried to shove past him, but Jack was quick.

"Hey, hey! Fine, I'll let you go, but I'm not going until you say yes." His smile was back, devilish and glinting, holding his arms out and shrugging. Anna paused a moment, looking him up and down and trying to gauge whether or not he was serious. She waved a hand at him and said over the sudden giggles of children a street over,

"Jack, you can't just follow me! Don't you have, I don't know, Guardian responsibilities to do?" He shrugged and deadpanned,

"No, not really."

Anna didn't take him seriously in that moment, giving him a look and asking,

"Why are you so bent on this? You don't know me."

"I know North. And I don't have to know someone to want them to be happy, you know?" He leaned on the staff as he said this, grinning, "Besides, like I just said, I don't have anything better to do."

Again, Anna didn't believe him in that moment.

But she soon would come to realize that, when it came to the Guardian of Fun, relentlessness was one of his many attributes.

-Idaho, United States-

She sniffed, her nose running in the fridgid temperatures. It even felt cold indoors, the chill seeping up from the floor of the grocery store and moving around, stirred in the air by the impatient children and the tired parents. This, and only this, was a reason Anna enjoyed being unseen. No manuvering, no apologizing, just walking straight forward as people passed straight through her. The hardest part was finding an open aisle, one where no one would see a box of crackers mysteriously hovering off the shelf.

It wasn't that she was particularly hungry, or that she enjoyed the ambiance of a germ-filled grocery store. It was more that she was doing anything to get her mind focused. Going into crowded placed, seeing the people and the bright lights and the cheesy packaging, all of this settled her. She hadn't grown up with any of this, in fact she stopped aging at a time where nothing here was even thought of, and yet Anna found a strange sense of peace around how the world was today. It was easier to stop thinking.

The asile, mostly empty spare a child running across one end, had rows and rows of impossibly neat-stacked boxes. The calm overtook the uneasiness she felt, being so out of her element in such a trivial place. This wasn't a cave. It wasn't a dark forest. It wasn't a Russian tundra. So for now, it was perfect.

Anna's finger ran over the boxes like the spines of books and stopped when she saw one she liked, reaching in and pulling it from the shelf.

And then had a heart attack.

"Ahhh!" She screamed, tossing the box to the side and flying back to the opposite shelf, looking into the blue eyes of the face that had appeared behind the box.

"Hey!"Jack pipped, and Anna groaned, grinding her fists into her eyes to get herself to see straight. When she opened them, Jack was in her aisle, picking up a box and placing it back where his face had just been. Frustration boiled over inside of Anna, an anger and an annoyance that coiled up inside of her and ached in her bones. She couldn't even articulate, but instead stormed through the store and out the front door, into the snow banks that made up the parking lot.

She knew he was following her, as he had been doing for a week now. She'd thought that after a day or so he would leave, especially when she slipped him in Moscow. But there he was, everywhere she went, with the same smile. And everytime, he pushed the same subject. Every day. For a week. And finally, Anna had had enough.

"Idaho! I went to freaking Idaho! How did you follow me here?! Is this even an American state?"She exclaimed as they walked past the store and across the street to a row of houses, making their way along the sidewalk. Jack laughed and walked next to her, swinging the staff across his shoulders.

"Of course it is! Aren't potatoes a big thing in Russia?"

"What century are you in, man? No, actually, no. This has got to stop. You can't keep...following me everywhere I go! If I say I don't want to see him, then I won't see him! Ever." Anna stressed. She panted, her hands open and pulled close to her, trying to find a way to tell Jack that she wanted him to drop the subject, and at the same time not leave.

Because she was terrible at being alone.

Jack wasn't a friend, she wouldn't think that until he explicitly stated it, but he was company. He was fun company, pun not intended. And from what little she assumed he was told about her, he seemed to know enough to still want to be near her. Anna hadn't met anyone like that since...well, honestly, in centuries. And without that person having darker alterior motives, never. She had tried to deny it at first, but the more he showed up, the more he made her inevitably laugh until her ribs hurt, she realized she didn't quite mind having him around.

"Anna,"His voice was reasoning and calm, the smile still lazily on his face, "I promise to MiM and anything else out there, this will be the very last time that I ever ask you again. But please just hear me out, okay? I promise." She stared at him long and hard, crossing her arms against the cold and that completely trusting look in his eyes. And something inside of her made her nod her head. Jack nodded up to a roof and he kicked up the wind, carrying himself up there. Anna, being restricted to more Earth-bound modes of transportation, climbed up.

He cleared her a spot in the snow and they sat on the roof, looking out into the evening blue-yellow sky.

"You have one shot, Frosty, make it count."Anna explained, with no expectation what-so-ever of him making a decent case.

And she was wrong.

"North told us everything. All about you, from before he first met you to the moment you left, and I know I've said that I understand a hundred-"

"Two hundred."

"Hey! I'm on a time crunch! Hush up! Anyway, where was I?...Oh yeah! But that doesn't mean anything, I get it. You don't know me, I barely know you...but this is about North. And I know North, maybe not as well as you and maybe not for as long, but I know enough to see how broken up he is about this. You think he's angry but he isn't, I swear I never saw an ounce of anger in him when he was talking about you. You know what I did see though?

"I saw a man who lost someone important." Anna shifted in the snow, her hands clenched around her knees, trying to look anywhere that wasn't Jack. "He's a little better now, but not by much. It wasn't seeing you that upset him, Anna, it was that he wants to see you again. He misses you. Think about it this way: All those years you spent thinking he hated you, maybe not liking yourself very much either, and he just...he just missed you."

There was a heavy silence, and Anna was biting down so hard on the inside of her cheek that she tasted an irony kind of taste, focusing on taking in breath.

"Anna, you wanna know something? One time I did something really stupid, and North forgave me. If you mean as much as I think you do to him, then I know he'll forgive you too. Just talk to him, just let him see you again if that's all you want to do."

And that silence was deafening. It screeched in her head and thumped against her ribcage, permiating the air around her with thick staccatto noises. But at the same time, it was still. Inside it was havoc, but outside it was a stale kind of stillness that waited for her answer. She thought about years alone, about dark homes and forests and a future that was moving too fast for her to understand alone. She thought about the choices that had led her here. The decisions. Anna thought about everything that was engrained into being a part of her.

And she answered.

"...Talk to him first. Ask him, really ask him, make sure he wants this. Make sure he knows what he's asking for. And make sure he knows he isn't getting the Anna he used to know, alright? Because I'm not her and I can't be her."

Jack was already halfway to her by the time she finished talking, and slammed into her side with a loud whoop of victory. He wrapped her in a too-tight hug and mushed the sides of their faces together.

"Yes! I'll go now! Stay here, stay in this town, okay? I'll be back tomorrow to get you!" Jack stood then as Anna recovered from the hug, and she called after him as he took off,

"Only if he agrees!"

She didn't know if Jack heard her, or if she wanted him to hear her. She sighed and fell limply backwards into the snow, letting it chill the shaved underside of her hair, blowing her breath up above her. Her fingers found the cold of the snow, her chest tight with anxiety. It all hit her at once what she had just agreed to.

Jack made a convincing case. But it hadn't just been that to push Anna over the edge. Because as he spoke she thought about her future, something she'd never considered before a week ago, after she ran. She had sworn this time would be different. She had sworn this time she would be stronger. That this time she would make different choices, and she would be better at things, and she would make herself better.

She had never considered seeing him again as part of that. But wasn't that a massive part of her existance? He had played the best and worst part possible, he was the catalyst for what could have been wonderful and what was terrible. Really, it wasn't so much him in the bad as her, but at the same time...she didn't think she could do this. She didn't think she could look him in the eye after all the awful things she had done to him and explain what more she had done in her time away. She couldn't bear that shame, not if he was the same North.

She couldn't bear to see his face when she wasn't the little girl he loved like a daughter. When she was older and meaner and harder and terrified. She didn't want to see him hate her. But now she had to, she had made that promise, and all she had to do was hope he declined, hope that Jack Frost had been wrong.

When she opened her eyes a few minutes later, the snow had receeded around her in a perfect, stagnant circle.