"Daddy, I can't believe anymore." Jackie 'Bennet' Carter sobbed, "You aren't here to help me."

"Come on Jack," said North putting one of his large hands on the boy's shoulder. "Let us get back to sleigh."

Jack pulled away from him and shook his head. "I—I need to be alone right now." And with those words he flew up and away.

Tooth prepared to go after him before Sandy stopped her. She looked down at the sandman and he shook his head.

"Just give em' a while," said Bunny. "He just lost his best friend, he's gonna need a bit."

"Alright," said Tooth mournfully looking up at the faint shadow of the snow guardian. He was already disappearing in the approaching clouds.


The boy in the air could not be seen by anyone which was probably a good thing. If they could have seen him then they wouldn't have recognized the magic in him. They would have simply seen the teen child with the blue hoodie and no shoes walking in the street of the small town on the Eurasian continent.

They would have thought he was a homeless child on the spring evening. But if they had gotten closer, and could see him they would have seen the tear streaks in his pale skin. And if they had gotten even closer they would have seen the deep sorrow in his eyes.

Jack couldn't see his face in the slowly melting ice on the sidewalks, and he couldn't see the emptiness in his eyes either.

But if he had he would have thought about the eyes of his friends.

Sandy had big golden eyes filled with the joy of bringing that same joy to people all over the world. But he also had the wise knowing of an old man who knew who to turn that frown upside down.

Bunny had pride in his eyes. It was the pride of someone who knew their place in the world and knew they were important. But in his softer moments you could see what the man in the moon knew was there. It was the tender softness of spring and new life. Like a baby bunny.

Tooth had happiness in her big pink eyes, surrounded by her eyelashes. She had the busyness of someone who could never be bored. She saw the innocence of children and filled herself with it, even if she did have strange interests.

North had big blue eyes 'filled with wonder'. He had told Jack exactly what filled him with that wonder. He always wanted to show others this wonder. And the joy of a Christmas morning was always in him.

But in Jack's pale blue eyes there was the sadness of a lost child. But in them was also the toughness of a person who had seen so many bad things that he had forgotten how to feel. The only joy that ever surrounded this child was outside him in his friends.

Now the thing that brought him real joy was gone. His best friend was gone. He had watched this child grow up, and experience the joy in his life. He had been with the human boy though thick and thin. He had been there when he had broken his first bone. Jack had been there when they boy had prepared for his first ball game, and his first date. And he had been there for the boy's first heart break. He had been honorary best man for his wedding. Jack had been there the day his first child had been born. Jack had been the first person to see him after he had gotten his first job. And now Jack had been the last person to see Jamie alive.

No he couldn't even think the name without a new wave of tears fell from his eyes.

They would never share secrets again. They would never throw snowballs together and they would never share a knowing smile.

Jack remembered for J—his thirteenth birthday Jack had taken him to the North Pole. Then for his fourteenth birthday he took him to the tooth place, and then the next year he took him to the Easter burrow.

He was gone. Jamie Bennet was… dead.

And with that thought the boy who looked older than he was, the one who had seen so much, couldn't handle seeing anything else and sat down right there in the middle of the abandoned street and cried.

yep two chapters at the same time you must be shok-ed and amaz-ed R&R