Jamie put his forehead down on his knees with a sigh. This was supposed to be the best winter ever. Ever since last spring, he had waited expectantly for the temperature to drop, for the young winter spirit to return. A part of him had been terrified that it had all been a dream or that, even if it was real, he would still never see the Guardian ever again.

But Jack had returned to Burgess, bringing snow and fun back with him. The white haired teenager promised him he would have an amazing time. The best snowball fights, the best sleigh rides. He would teach him to skate on the frozen lake. They would build a snow fort. It was to be the most fun he had in his entire life.

And it had all been taken away from him.

"Why Jamie sad?"

He raised his head and turned his gaze in the direction of the voice. His little sister stared back at him with worried eyes as she sipped on her lemonade, reclining on the sunlounger next to his. Jamie sighed again and stretched his own legs, trying to find the words to explain his anguish to Sophie.

"We're missing winter."

"There's dolphins here."

"There's Jack in Burgess."

Sophie considered this. She looked like she couldn't quite decided which was best. At her age, the little girl understood 'there's dolphins here' a lot better than 'Jack will make our winter awesome'. She did not yet know the Guardian as well as he did. She did not understand how amazing things would have been if they had stayed home instead of being dragged on a cruise by their mom. He tried to convince Jack to kidnap him or something, but the Spirit of Winter had merely laughed and ruffled his hair.

"Have fun on your trip," he said.

Before he could continue to explain to Sophie why she should be miserable about being here, a commotion caught their attention. A large group of their fellow passengers had assembled along the ship's railing to point at something in the water with cries of disbelief. Many of them snapped pictures. Curious, he got out of his chair and ran up to them to see what was going on. Sophie followed, clapping her hands excitedly.

"Dolphins!"

"I don't think it's dolphins, Soph. Everyone wouldn't just—"

He stopped talking abruptly when he saw what everyone else was seeing. Or more than they were seeing, actually. A small ice platform floated on the clear water of the Carribean Sea. Wandering on its frozen surface, a lone penguin stared at the ship as it passed it by. Light, very localized snow fell over the incongruous scene. And, invisible to everyone's eyes but those of the two children from Burgess, a white haired teen sat casually on the platform, smiling in amusement at the tourists' reaction. Jamie felt a grin split his face.

"Jack!" Sophie shouted, waving happily.

A few of the adults threw her curious glances, but they must have assumed she was waving at the penguin. Most could not look away from the misplaced animal. Jack waved back at her with a crooked grin.

"How's your cruise going?"

"It just got awesome!" Jamie shouted at him, not caring what anyone thought.

"Great! Keep it that way!" Jack shouted back, cupping his hands around his mouth to be heard as the ship moved away from his melting platform. "I'll see you in Burgess when you come back. Got to go, now. I need to bring my little friend back home."

Jamie burst out laughing. He waved at the Guardian with his little sister until they were out of sight. Ignoring the bewildered adults, Sophie turned to him with a bright smile.

"You're right. Jack better than dolphins."


Since I'm currently on vacation, I'm going to try to write a chapter a day again, at least for the week. I've been re-reading all of the reviews I got for this fanfic (I'm not quite done with that yet, there's really a lot of them!). I can see now how I managed to keep doing this everyday for over a month. You guys are awesome.

On a separate note, I often get various questions about possible romance in this story. I answer them individually when I can, but for everyone I couldn't answer or anyone else who's wondering, there will not be any romance in this. There's certainly some very close relationship, but they're not intended to be romantic. You can read what you want into them, though.