Chapter 5

When Alice got the alarm that someone had broken into Skool, she dropped what she was doing and rushed there as fast as she could.

After she'd failed to protect the Insane Children of Wonderland twice, from both the Mad Hatter's experiments or the Dollmaker's torture, she had taken it upon herself to not let them come to harm again.

She had given them a home in the Skool, and set all sorts of protections and alarms around the walls that would notify her immediately if something went wrong, and visited them often to make sure they were working.

The last time someone had tried to harm the children it had been the Duchess, who had a brief laps in her pork diet, and thought the children would make a tasty snack.

Alice made sure she relearned her manners in a very painful manner, and it now seemed the Duchess was on her way to being a vegetarian. Not many Wonderlanders had attempted to get close since, aside from a few suicidal ones, but they had been smart enough not to harm the children.

Alice reached the Skool and jumped through the window fearing the worst.

She did not expect to hear the halls filled with gleeful childish laughter.

Thrown off guard, Alice followed the laughter to the library, and the sight there made her pause.

It seemed Jack Frost had finally returned, as he was making a great show of checking various hiding spots in the library. Several of the Insane Children were watching him from the elevator lift, and giggling at his antics. None of them had noticed Alice yet.

Frost theatrically tapped his chin, as he paused in front of a giggling bookshelf. "I wonder where Corkscrew could be?" he announced loudly, making the children laugh. He dramatically looked to the right, left, and up, before jerking behind the bookshelf and yelling, "Gotcha!"

With a shriek of laughter, the little mad girl called Corkscrew (so named for the remains of a large screw sticking through her head) bolted from the other side of the bookcase, and ran towards the other children on the lift. The children cheered her on as she ran to them. Frost ran behind her deliberately slow, and pretended to trip and fall on the way, allowing Corkscrew to join her friends uninhibited.

"Safe!" Corkscrew cheered once she set foot on the elevator, and the others congratulated her.

Frost sat up off the floor and gave the group a mock scowl, "I'll get you next time my pretty," he said in high falsetto, and dramatically pointing at the children, "and your little dog too."

This sent another wave of laughter from the children, and Alice decided to make her presence known.

"What is going on here?" she asked stepping forward.

"Alice!" cheered the children, and they ran over too her. Frost also broke into a grin at the sight of her, but kept his distance as the children crowded around her.

"We're playing hide-and-go-seek," said the child called Muzzle.

"We're having so much fun too," said another named Eyeless.

"Jack's not very good at this game," giggled another named Redhead. "He can find us alright, but he can never catch us."

"And since I found all of you but one," Frost announced to them all, "I declare Leader the winner."

There came a muffled cheer, "Yes!" before Leader picked her way down to the rest of them from one of the upper levels.

While all this happened, Alice had felt rather thrown for a loop. She didn't know how she felt about Frost's return. Annoyed at his intruding again. Angry at his breaking into the Skool, and making her fear the worst. Bemused by his theatrics and games with the Insane Children. And in one small corner of herself that she wouldn't admit, she felt a small amount of relief at his keeping his promise.

Alice assumed her expression looked disproving, because Frost's face fell into a resigned look. "Looks like I have to go now, kids," he said.

The children all looked disappointed. "You'll come and play with us again, won't you Jack?" asked Corkscrew.

"Please," begged several others.

Frost gave them a kind smile, "I will if it's alright with Alice."

Alice found herself pinned under the gaze of several pleading eyes (at least from the children who had eyes).

She frowned, and turned to look at Leader. "Do you think he's safe to come back?"

Leader nodded with a grin. "He's a bit strange, but I don't think he'll hurt us."

"I won't," Frost said insistently. He made an x over his heart and said, "I swear on my honor as a Guardian."

Alice gave a resigned sigh. "Then I suppose it would be alright on occasion," she said reluctantly. After all these children had gone through, she couldn't bring herself to deny them someone who brought them joy.

The Insane Children cheered, and Frost sent her a grateful grin.

When the cheering died down, Leader said, "We'll leave you to threaten him with bloody murder should he not keep that promise."

With that the Insane Children scuttled out of the library leaving it empty save for Alice and Frost.

Frost gave an awkward chuckle and said, "Kids, gotta love 'em."

"Indeed," said Alice, glaring at him harshly. "And if I find you are the cause of any harm to them, I will kill you without mercy."

"Good," he said in a serious tone. "I don't want anyone hurt because of me."

Alice started at that, but upon seeing the determined look on his face, she could tell he meant it.

She shook herself out of it, and cleared her throat, "So you've returned, have you."

"Yeah," said Frost, fetching his staff from where it had been leaning against a wall while he'd played. "Sorry it took so long. Bunny's Warren is huge, and has tunnels that go all over the world. I got lost trying to find my way back."

"Bunny?" she asked.

"Yeah," he grinned over at her. "He's the Pooka I mentioned before."

She frowned, and subconsciously began rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. "And what exactly is a Pooka?"

Frost looked amused. "According to Bunny, they were an ancient race of warrior rabbit people. They used to have advanced civilizations many millennia ago, but were al wiped out by someone. And now Bunny's the only one left before he became a spirit. You may have heard of him as the Easter Bunny, he's a Guardian like me."

Alice frowned at the ludicrously of his statement, but considering who and what her friends were she let it slide.

"What exactly do you mean by Guardian?" she asked, "You've called yourself that twice now."

"I'm one of the Guardians of Childhood," he said in a tone that seemed a cross between pride and amusement. "It's our job to protect the children of the world, good or bad, naughty or nice."

This made Alice frown angrily. "Then you are doing a terrible job of it!" she snapped. What good where these Guardians, when they didn't protect her, or the other children in their time of need.

He blinked at her owlishly, "Why?" he asked startled

"There were children in the Houndsditch Home for Wayward Youth that needed protecting long before I ever got there," she said coldly, leaving out her own childhood troubles. "They were at the mercy of a predator, and got no protection from the likes of you."

Frost's eyes widened in horror as the meaning of what she was saying sunk in. He sat down hard on the floor, and looked like he was about to be sick. "I'm sorry," he said sincerely when he found his voice. "I only became a Guardian recently, and before that there was not much I could do other than make it snow. The other Guardians live mostly in isolation, and only come out for more supernatural threats. I don't know if they're even aware of what other dangers kids can face." He looked up at her. "What happened to them, the children?"

Alice's lips thinned. "I killed the monster causing them pain. After that I know not what happened to them."

Frost sighed, both in regret and relief. "Well that's something at least. For what it's worth, I'll try to do more for children in that situation from now on."

Alice gave him a searching look, but as far as she could tell he seemed sincere.

"What did you mean when you said there was nothing you could do for them before being a Guardian?" she asked, trying to steer the conversation away from her personal matters.

Frost glanced up at her with a wry expression. "Tell me something, Alice. Did you ever believe in me as a child?"

"What?" she asked in surprise.

"Did you ever believe I was real? Like you would have believed in the Tooth Fairy collecting your teeth, or Santa Claus leaving presents at Christmas."

Alice paused, and thought back on her vague memories of childhood. Finally she replied, "No, I don't suppose I did. I thought you were just a story."

Frost gave her a resigned nod that told her he'd been expecting that response. "No one ever believed in me until recently. And the thing about us spirits, we need to be believed in order to be seen. Without belief people just pass through us like ghosts. We can't be seen, or heard, or touched by anyone. Like that, there isn't much I can do directly to someone aside from ice sidewalks and throw snowballs."

Alice felt there was a hidden implication in that statement, but she brushed it aside. Instead she found herself sitting down next to him.

"The Insane Children you met here came into being as manifestations of the children I couldn't protect," she explained in a clipped tone. She wan't sure why she was telling them this, but she felt she should. "They are my charges, and their scars are my guilt for failing to keep them from harm. Though the scars they have now are better than the open wounds they used to have. They are healing, slowly."

Frost nodded, but said nothing.

They sat in a heavy silence for a bit, before Alice couldn't help her curiosity. "Tell me more about these Guardians? You said the Easter Bunny was one of them? How could a rabbit with eggs protect children?"

Frost gave her a grateful grin at the change in subject. "I did say he came from a warrior race, didn't I. There are more then just Bunny and me, there's also Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Sandman. We were all chosen by the Man in the Moon to protect children, as well as aspects of childhood. I have Fun, Bunny's is Hope, North (that's Santa) protects Wonder, Tooth takes care of Memories, and Sandy protects Dreams…"

They continued on like that for a while. Frost told Alice all about his fellow Guardians, and she listened on in interest, occasionally asking a question. She didn't feel she could forgive them for their ignorance about the plights of her past, but if Frost held true to his promise, she could remain indifferent about them.

After some time had passed, and Frost ran out of things to say about his friends, Alice asked a new question that had been on her mind since finding him here. "How did you find the Skool, Frost? It is quite the distance from the Hatter's Domain."

Frost scratched the back of his head, and said, "I'm not sure, but either I came out a different entrance from before. Or the hole I used moved from the last time I was here, because it came out in a corner by a wall in this place."

Alice frowned at that. There had certainly been no hole on the Skool grounds before. "Show me?" she said.

Frost, after saying goodbye to the Insane Children, led her to where the rabbit hole was now placed. Alice was sure it had never been there before, as she had made certain that the Skool would be safe to house the children in. This was not something she would have overlooked

"Do you know if your friend Bunnymund has been digging into my Wonderland recently?" she asked.

"I doubt it," said Frost. "I don't think he even knows his tunnels can lead here. And also, it's almost a month till Easter, so he's been super busy getting ready for that. So it's not likely he's been taking time off to dig new tunnels."

Alice frowned. "Then I suppose you were correct in the theory that the entrance must have moved, because I am certain it was not here before. Curiouser and curiouser."

Frost shrugged. "Either way, it's about time I got back. But I'll swing my again sometime soon."

With that he dove down the hole, and Alice was left to wonder what the warm feeling inside her was when he said he'd come back.

Watching all this from his perch on the wall, the Cheshire smirked and faded away.

*A*A*A*

A/N Well their second meeting went a bit better their first. Alice still got mad though. I don't think she'd think much of the Guardians, when they didn't help her with her childhood. And I can't see Jack being happy about hearing some kids got hurt like that.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.