Sorry if this chapter is barely edited.


"Maybe I should try that."

Jamie turned his eyes away from the screen where the children sang their crazy, psychotic song to look at Jack. Sophie grabbed the bowl of popcorn from him, putting a fistful of it in her mouth.

"Do what? There's nothing about this I would recommend doing."

"Temporarily kidnap North and take over Christmas, I mean. Just once."

Jamie sighed. Maybe inviting Jack to stay and watch The Nightmare Before Christmas with them hadn't been such a good idea. He had grown overly fond of his namesake from the movie and Jack Skellington was not exactly a good role model for mischievous immortals. Not that Jamie didn't like the character just as much, but actually following his example was not a possibility for him.

"Jack... you should just leave Christmas to North. It's kind of his thing. He knows what he's doing."

Jack shrugged and grabbed the popcorn from Sophie. Jamie hoped he wasn't seriously considering it. As much as he liked Jack, he wanted Christmas to stay, well, Christmas.

"I could give everyone a white Christmas, no matter where they live."

"Can you really? I thought making it snow in warmer places was really hard," Sophie asked around her mouthful of popcorn.

"It's harder. But I'm a Guardian, now. There's a lot I can do that used to be too hard."

"But there's more to Christmas than the snow. What about the toys?"

"I've seen how North do it. He carves them from ice! Do you think I can't do that?"

"I still don't think this is a good idea."

"When did you start getting all responsible on me, Jamie?"

Jamie chuckled and shrugged. It was true that when he was younger he would likely have been all for Jack taking over Christmas. If only because Jack was awesome. But Jack Skellington had been awesome too and he had done a pretty bad job. He just couldn't imagine anyone succeeding like North did. Jack had returned his attention to the movie. He glared at Oogie Boogie, shoving more popcorn in his mouth.


Jamie stood to stretch after spending so long sitting. Sophie laughed.

"You're getting old, Jamie."

He threw a cushion at her. She laughed again, throwing it back. To his surprise, Jack did not try to turn this into a pillow fight. He still stared at the screen as the credit rolled, frowning.

"Jack? Are you all right?"

"Yeah. You were right, you know? I should leave Christmas to North."

"That's good to hear," Jamie said hesitantly, feeling like he was missing something.

"I'll just have to take over Halloween instead."

"Wh-what?"

"Awesome!" Sophie shouted.

"Why not? There is no Jack Skellington to take care of it. Think about it! Trick or treat? I can do that!"

"B-but it's a fall holiday." Jamie stuttered. He briefly tried to imagine Jack dressed in black and orange. It failed. He could not really imagine the spirit of winter having anything to do with other seasons. He was just too...wintery. Even if he had seen Jack give out candies on Halloween before.

"So? I usually start showing up in the Northern Hemisphere around that time, anyway. I can go around the world handing out candies. It's fall, here and spring in the south. It's not too warm anywhere for a visit from Jack Frost. What do you think?"

Jamie couldn't help but smile. He remembered a Halloween years ago when Jack had handed out treats like that. It had been fun, he couldn't deny.

"Where are you going to find enough candies for all the children?"

"I'll manage. I'm a Guardian, we can do that kind of things."

Jack was grinning from ear to ear and so was Sophie. She was lucky she could still go trick-or-treating. Jamie was getting too old for that. He would be eighteen years old next Halloween.

"I'm sure you'll do a wonderful job."


I might write a sequel to this. Maybe several. Those of you familiar with the timeline may have recognized that this is the same year as Kids Need To Grow Up.

I would like to inform everyone right away that I'm likely to disappear in April. Not forever, just for the month. I'll be participating in Camp NaNoWriMo, so I'll be doing a lot of writing already for my original stories (I've set my goal to the standard 50,000 words). I doubt I'll have time to update any fanfictions. I would encourage everyone to join in as well (it does not involve actual camping, just writing). If anyone wants to request me as a cabin mate, my username is sisaat there as well. So we can pretend to be camping together.