Jack was sitting at the top of his tree. Emma had just gotten home. She walked around back and looked at his tree. He looked down at her with a sad smile on his face. As she started back toward the house, he spoke.
"Hi, Emma." He always talked to her, even though he knew she couldn't hear him. She looked around suddenly. Against his will, Jack's heart lept. It was as if she had heard him. He shook himself. He knew it wasn't going to happen. But maybe she had sensed something…. She had been unusually alert lately.
He laughed a bit, crouching on his branch. Maybe this was his chance to have some fun with her.
She was turning back around, slowly, as he floated down from the tree. He touched down lightly, leaving no footprints in the fresh snow. He couched down, forming a perfect snowball in his hands. He laughed as he got ready to throw it.
As if in response to his laugh, Emma spun around again. Her eyes went wide. Jack stuttered to a halt. The hand he had raised to throw the snowball dropped a bit, and her eyes followed it. She seemed to be looking straight at him.
"E-Emma?" he asked, voice shaking, hardly daring to hope.
She heard a laugh behind her. Emma spun around again and caught sight of a boy with white hair about to throw a snowball at her. She stared at him. He stopped moving, seeming surprised at her reaction. The hand with the snowball lowered a bit.
"E-Emma?" He said in a shaky voice.
"How do you know my name?" She asked him, confused.
The boy with the white hair dropped the snowball. He took a step back. He looked as though he couldn't make up his mind. His clear blue eyes shone with tears.
"Why are you crying?" She asked. This boy seemed so familiar to her, and somehow it seemed wrong that he should be crying.
"You… you can see me?" He said, his voice barely audible.
"Uh, yeah. Who are you?" She tilted her head to one side. She was sure she had seen him before….
"I'm Jack! Don't you know me?" He skimmed over the snow and stopped right in front of Emma, looking into her eyes. She noticed that he wasn't wearing any shoes.
"Jack… Like Jack Frost?" She asked. She was vaguely excited, but something about that statement didn't feel right. When she said it, his face fell.
"Frost?" He laughed, but it sounded more like a sob. "You only know me as Jack Frost?" He wiped his eyes and muttered under his breath, "I suppose I should be grateful you can see me at all…"
"Who else would you be?" Emma asked curiously.
"Jackson Overland. Your brother." He said, looking at her face pleadingly.
"You're not my brother, even if your name is Jack. He's gone." Emma turned away as her voice broke.
"No, Emma, I'm your brother!" He put a hand on her shoulder to stop her from walking away. "You have to believe me! You finally see me and I can't…." He trailed off as he saw the hurt look in her eyes.
"My brother's gone." She said again. Even if this was Jack Frost, he had no business talking about Jack. Just because he was magic didn't mean he could pretend to be him.
"No, Emma, you have to listen to me! I'm Jack! Or, I was…"
She turned around to glare at him, and noticed that the blue sweatshirt he was wearing looked just like Jack's. He did look like him, except for the coloring. "If you're Jack, then tell me what my favorite game is."
"Hopscotch. We played it all the time!"
She was surprised. "How did you know that?"
"Because I'm your brother! Emma, please…" he fell to his knees in the snow beside her and hugged her.
She gasped. Though the hug was as cold as ice, no one but her brother felt like that. She suddenly knew him, the way she knew right from wrong and good from bad. Jack, whom she had believed was gone forever, was hugging her again.