I hope you don't mind a Sophie arc, because you're getting one.


"Jamie, will you hurry up? It's usually the girl that spend forever getting ready because she needs to put on her makeup. I've been ready for ages."

"I'm almost done, Soph, give me a minute!"

Before she could urge him further, the doorbell rang again. Sophie gabbed a handful of candies as she hastened to the door. She threw it opened, her best lopsided grin on her face.

"Trick or treat?" the children chanted together. Her grin widened. She dropped a piece of candies into each of their plastic buckets. The kids were really young, their parents waiting on the sidewalk in front of the house. They looked at her with shiny eyes before realizing that her costume was just that: a costume.

"Happy Halloween, kids," she said with a wink. Earlier, she tried deepening her voice when she spoke. She gave this up quickly. It sounded more silly than authentic.

"Soph, how does it look?" Jamie said as she closed the door. She turned to inspect him. Her brother would be staying home for Halloween for the first time this year. He usually came with her, even if he was a little old for it himself. He said he needed to look after his little sister. Sophie was pretty certain it was just an excuse to soak in the Halloween spirit. But with Sophie being almost twelve years old, that excuse was getting a little hard to believe. So he told their mother he would take care of giving the candies. She had been free to plan a horror movie night with some coworkers instead.

It had been a few years since Jamie hadn't actually dressed up for Halloween. And it had been a few months since he had not smiled like a child. That twinkle was back in his eyes. It was good to see.

"Took you long enough."

"Come on! All you had to do was put on a shirt and pants and a wig. I had to try fitting into this thing and all that makeup was hard, OK?"

"I had to put on makeup too," she scoffed. It may not have been as complex as Jamie's, but unlike her brother when he wore that same costume she actually made her skin unnaturally pale. "And you know how hard it was to tuck all of my hair into that wig?"

"Alright, alright. I'm slow. But how does it look?"

"Like Jack Skellington ate too much candies and grew some hair," she said with a grin. Jamie sulked. "Don't worry. You look awesome. What about me?"

"Like a girl pretending to be Jack Frost." He likely meant to sound taunting, but the effect was lost at the nostalgia that tinted his voice and softened his features. Sophie had not just dressed as Jack Frost, she was actually wearing his own costume. She was trying to get him to remember. It wasn't her first try.

It had been a shock, realizing Jamie no longer believed. She tried talking to him about the Guardians, reminding him of everything, but he just shook his head and told her she was getting a bit old to live in her own little fantasy world. He would tell her she was being childish whenever she brought it up. But Sophie did not miss the slightly envious look on his face every time. She did not miss how, sometime, he looked a little lost, like he was missing something but couldn't figure out what. Like right now.

"Jamie?"

He laughed a little and patted her wig. His smile was a little forced.

"Sometime I wish I was your age, Soph. I could go trick-or-treating without people rolling their eyes at me." The doorbell rang again before she could find an answer. "Sorry I kept you waiting. You can go, now. Have fun."

"Right. You better have fun too."


Sophie wandered the streets of Burgess, not too interested in actually collecting candies. She watched the children instead. Most were younger than her. All had big grins on their faces as they ran from door to door. It brought a smile back to her own face. She hadn't been smiling enough, lately.

With Jamie thinking that the Guardians were just her own childish fantasies, she had felt very isolated. Her own friends no longer believed and he had been the only one she still had to speak to about such things. The only one keeping her from thinking she was just crazy. If at least Jack was around, it would be easier. But he wasn't. Not yet, at least.

"Jack Frost?"

Her head shot up when she heard the name, looking around to find the young Guardian. She saw a boy looking at her with wide eyes full of wonder. They were both disappointed to realize their mistake.

"Oh. You're not Jack Frost."

"Sorry, kid. Jack isn't back yet," she said with a little smile, ruffling his hair. Remembering the first time she had seen him on Halloween, she fished a candy from her own mostly empty bag and dropped it in his own. She leaned her staff on her shoulder, giving him her best imitation of Jack's grin.

"Happy Halloween, kiddo."

The kid's laughter was certainly worth the loss of a single candy. She could tell why Jack had amused himself by doing this a few times. She remembered the last winter, how Jack had said he would take over Halloween. He was nowhere to be found, this year. She wondered if he actually would. It made her sad to think Jamie would never know.


Jack's lake looked wrong to her, it water not frozen and colorful leaves scattered around the ground. She usually never came here when Jack wasn't around. She didn't know why she was here tonight. Maybe she secretly hoped that the Guardian had returned and was simply being discrete. Even if he did give them a snow day, the lake would have been frozen. It wasn't. She had not really expected it to be.

Did Jack know? She hoped he did. She could not imagine how much it would hurt to come here and realize that Jamie couldn't see or hear him anymore. But would he know why? Sophie didn't. Jamie had been acting odd all summer, staying locked in his room most of the time. She didn't know what happened to make him stop believing. She wondered if they had a fight. But over what? Even if he wasn't an impressionable child anymore, Jamie never seemed to disagree with anything Jack ever said or did. He was still very much his childhood hero.

"What happened, Jack?"

Only the silence answered her. Sophie worried Jack might not come back. Maybe he would prefer to stay away from Burgess and his friend who did not remember him. This frightened her. Jack's presence every winter had become something she felt she could rely on. Now, with Jamie acting like the Guardians weren't real, she wasn't sure what would happen to her own belief if Jack suddenly disappeared from her life.

Would she start doubting? Thinking she was just crazy? Was that how her bother had forgotten? Had he started to doubt his sanity until he convinced himself he had imagined everything? That would explain why he looked so anxious since Jack left in the spring. Sophie was not ready to stop believing.

"Jack, please come back."


This is the first of likely four chapters. It was originally supposed to be a single chapter with several short scenes with Sophie visiting the lake like Bunny mentioned in Closure, but I kept adding to it, so I cut it. So you get a little arc instead.