A/N: Okay I know I haven't been writing in a long time, but I've just been soooooo busy! Like seriously really busy! Especially with thanksgiving and then finals after that. My bf is sooo lucky! He had finals before thanksgiving, so once his finals were over it was thanksgiving and then vacation! I still have to deal with my stupid mass media and society class, which the teacher sooooo doesn't care about! He doesn't even grade assignments! Waste. of. time.

lol anyways! Onward! Let's get this triangle on the road! ;P

Through out the past week, Keira began to get into a comfortable routine. After school, she would walk with Jamie to work and they would both sneak some homework in through their breaks, then when her shift was over Keira would meet up with Jack in the little park of trees and they would spend most of the night together. Keira had the sneaking suspicion that perhaps Jamie liked her. She didn't know if she was positive, but when they would walk to work he seemed to blush a hell of a lot and stutter. He would also glance at her through out their shift when he thought she wasn't looking. If this was a good thing or a bad thing, Keira couldn't decide. She was quite confused if she should like Jamie because he was cute, or if she shouldn't because she was two years older. Two years wasn't that big of a difference, but in high school, the pecking order decreed that Juniors did not converse with Freshmen. The only time this rule did not apply was if they were siblings, had known each other since they were practically babes, or if they were your neighbor and you needed them to look after your pets while on your family vacation to Hawaii.

Jamie was under none of these categories.

But nonetheless, Keira stuck around after school, there was no point in avoiding Jamie, especially since they worked together. So she supposed that working together was a sufficient enough reason to converse after school and avoid being teased by the socialites who ruled the school's social life. She wouldn't admit it to anybody, but she was noticing that Jamie was going through a growth spurt, and it was a fine one at that. Jamie's collar bones seemed to look more and more prominent every time she saw him, sometimes she thought they would poke her in the eye. Jamie also seemed to have grown an inch, along with his neck steadily becoming thicker. Perhaps he began pumping weights in his spare time.

Although these were advantages of his growth, there were a few things about this spurt that was lightly awkward as well, but Keira found she could only help but to smile at them. She first noticed when his skinny jeans were beginning to reveal some ankle when he walked, the cuffs of his sleeves where falling above his wrist which he tried to hide by keeping his hands in his pockets or scrunching up his sleeves when inside. And when his hair wasn't hidden in his snow hat she noticed it was longer and shaggy.

He definitely still held that awkward air that freshmen tend to carry in their backpacks. And although Keira was lightly put off by it, she found it was sometimes cute. Only sometimes.

Keira needed to keep her weird hormonal abnormalities in check, not that she had any abnormalities, but liking a freshman was by far abnormal. Even if she did like him, she wouldn't, that infatuation was not acceptable.

Now that she really thought about it, this pecking order, hierarchy, food chain, whatever you call it was rather confusing. Last year, there was a senior boy who went out with a sophomore girl, but nobody thought it was gross and wrote it off as cute. That is a two year difference as well, but she wasn't a freshman, she was at least broken in to High School society. But, if the roles were reversed, if the girl was the senior, and the boy was the sophomore would it be weird? Would the social food chain write it off as wrong and downright disturbing? Well Keira had to admit she would have found it a little weird, and she wouldn't be surprised if somebody called the girl a cougar or something. If the Senior boy had gone out with a freshman girl then it would have been even stranger, unless she was really hot or looked way older than she was, then nobody would know if she was a freshman or not.

Thinking of age differences and growth spurts, Keira's brain had decided to remind her of Jack's lack of growth. Keira had been seeing Jack for a long time, even though Jack didn't notice that she could see him, and the fact that Keira didn't exactly know what she was seeing, she did know that Jack never changed. He always looked the same, it was alarming, but it was also a light comfort now that Keira was friends with him, she would always know that Jack would look the same every time she saw him. He wouldn't change, he would be constant, and for Keira who grew up knowing things would never stay the same, it was comforting. But then she couldn't help but think about how old he could be.

This question seared into the back of her mind, How old was Jack? Was he so old that he didn't even know? Did he even know how old his body was frozen as? He looked like he could be in his teens, but he also looked as though he could be a young man, just before twenty. The more Keira pondered this, the more it bothered her. She had no idea why it had cured such a tedious thought, but whenever she thought about it, it made her chest feel heavy with worry. It played with her brain for hours during school, and finally on Friday when her day schedule was over, and she came to her favorite part of her routine, she couldn't help but let the question burst.

"How old are you?"

"Well that is an interesting way to say 'Hello'," Jack laughed as he jumped down from the branch he would sit on while waiting for her.

Keira blushed as she realized how odd she must have seemed, chest heaving as she practically power walked and just came out with a blunt question that could have been rather rude.

"Sorry," she mumbled, looking down in embarrassment, "I really do wanna know though," Jack couldn't help but smirk at her reddened face.

He had seemed to have found through out the week that making her face red was becoming his favorite past time, but he wouldn't do it to the extent to make her uncomfortable, that broke a few rules in his book as a Guardian.

He only smiled at her and put a hand on her head as a comforting gesture. They turned to walk her home like they always do when he finally answered her question.

"I don't really know how old I am," he smiled sadly, "It's kinda a long story," he began, looking at her with that same glint in his eyes that registered him as Jack to her.

"I had lost my memory when I became immortal," he told her, "I did gain some of it back, but..." he stopped thinking about what he could say. He skipped the part about his death, that was something that the living did not like to hear, and maybe he could tell her about that another time, but that also left out the story of his sister.

"But what?" she nudged him on with a sweet smile.

"When I got a good chunk of it back, I couldn't do anything about it," he smiled sadly, "I'm sure you've noticed already, since you asked me how old I am..." he trailed of but she picked up some of the slack for him.

"You don't age"

"Yeah"

They both lapsed into a silence that could have been awkward, but since they were both brewing in thought they didn't seem to notice it. Keira was smart, and she could piece two and two together. When someone never ages like that, they tend to find a lot of people dying before him.

"I hope that one day, I will have gained enough of your trust for you to tell me that story," she said, smiling at him in such a way that made him feel warm. Which was weird 'cause Jack was never warm, his body temperature was always cold, but being able to feel warm was always a comfort to him. Jack didn't reply to her heartfelt confession, he just smiled to her in thanks as they continued their way to her home.

Over the weekend, Jack could successfully say that he really enjoyed hanging out with Keira. She wasn't a kid, but she wasn't exactly an adult either. Kind of like him, except that she did age, and she had to teach him some on social ques and sayings. It took him forever to understand what "that's tight" meant and who it was acceptable to call 'bro, dude, chick, and hot' but the truth was that Jack was only teasing her when he learned the meaning of 'Hot'. Spending time with a teen was funner than he thought it would be, he always thought that teens were brooding and melodramatic from previous observations, but Keira was nice and warm. She made him feel as though he wasn't a guardian of fun, as though perhaps he wasn't a winter spirit. He was just Jack.

They had watched bad movies together, laughing at the bad actors and terrible make-up. When they got bored, they would talk until they thought of something fun to do, Jack even made it snow in her room he got so bored. They would talk about their hobbies, favorite books, colors, etc. And steadily they found that they were getting to know each other much better.

It was on Sunday night that the weekend began to get serious.

Jack had decided to use his little sprite to good use, to create a little snow during the night before the end of winter came. Keira was sitting at her desk finishing up her homework, which was not fun at all. And while they sat in silence Jack had kind of wished that he had joined the Sprite in making the little snow fall. Only a little bit. Just before Jack began playing with Keira's Tiki man, she asked him something that he had not expected at all.

"You said that you knew Jamie," she said still pouring over her essay, flicking back and forth between a book called Wuthering Heights, by a guy who was even older than Jack.

"Uhhh, yeah I did say that, huh?"

"Yeah, you know I talked about you to him the other day," she started, tearing away from her essay to look at Jack across her room.

"woah- wait- what?" Jack said sitting up suddenly.

"Yeah," She shrugged nonchalant, "I didn't ask him if he knew you though, didn't want to risk it if he didn't," She reasoned, "I mean then I would have looked absolutely insane," Jack did not breath out in relief when she explained their conversation, it made him tense and nervous.

there was a silence that filled the room for what seemed like eternity to Jack. Which was ironic since he has lived for about three hundred years or so. This silence, felt like four hundred more.

Keira sighed seemingly apathetic, she put down her pencil and then looked at Jack with concern.

"I know there is something you're not telling me, Jack." and Jack then feels five, and age he doesn't even remember. He feels as though he was scolded for drawing on the walls in blue crayon. Something he has never experienced before, but only observed.

"Yeah," Jack stands to move to her bed, sitting on the edge and staring down at his hands, "Sorry," he doesn't understand why he apologizes but he does. It felt good to apologize, but at the same time it felt bad to admit to feeling shame.

"Hey," Keira says affectionate, she sites down next to him on the bed, "Just tell me," and that's all she needs to say.

He lets it out, he tells her without needing to have it forced out, he tells her not because she is his friend, but because she asked.

"I know Jamie," he started, "I know his favorite foods, I know his favorite color, and I know his favorite books. I know that he wanted to join the football team, I know how excited he was for high school, he wouldn't stop telling me about it." Jack smiled a sad smile, "He was the first kid to believe in me," Jack confessed, "In a world where nobody saw me, he was the first. I didn't even try to get him to believe in me," he began to laugh, "I had tried before, trust me, I tried multiple times." he suddenly stopped, giving him some time to breath, some times to organize his thoughts.

"Wait, so, he knew you too? You guys, like, talked and stuff?" Keira interrupted her eyebrows quizzical.

"Yeah, we did more than talk, we played, we had snow ball fights, we would sneak off to Bunny's and pull pranks for him to find, we did almost everything together," Jack replied.

"Oh," she said, her brow already forming another question in her head, "wait, you said that he doesn't believe in you anymore?"

"Oh, yeah, that's how people are able to see me, they need to believe in me," he explained, "I wasn't believed in for a very long time, It was longer than I care to remember, and some years I don't remember at all," he confessed, "It was all a big blur, and then Jamie could see me, and I didn't feel so alone anymore."

"Well, Is it a bad thing that he can't see you anymore?"

"Not really, I mean, all kids grow up, and when they grow up, they naturally stop believing, but I always thought that Jamie would never forget."

Keira thought for a moment, putting her chin into her had, her lip jutted out and her forehead crinkled in an adorable expression.

"Have you tried getting him to believe again?" Keira asked, trying to piece together this jigsaw puzzle laid out before her.

Jack smirked, "One too many times, I even tried behind the other Guardian's backs."

"What are the guardians?" Keira asked, out of her revery.

"Oh, they're just the guys, you know Santa, the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy, and Sandman," Jack explained quickly. Which Keira then made an 'o' shape and continued back into her deep musings.

"So you've already tried getting him to believe, right?" Keira asked again, she already knew the answer but Jack replied anyway.

"Y-yeah..."

"Well then, I'm not surprised you failed," she smirked at him, the rude comment struck a chord with Jack right off the bat.

His expression instantly darkened, "Really? and why is that?" he asked snapping at her, which only made her smirk grow wider.

"Because you didn't have me!" she laughed pointing at herself.

For the rest of the evening Keira spent it finishing the second draft of her essay. When she was finally finished it was well after midnight, but Keira managed to convince Jack to stay anyways. And for the rest of the night she and Jack came up with a few plans to try and get Jamie to believe again.

When Keira finally obliged for bed, she was excited for the three hours to pass so she could see Jack again and they could enact the first part of their plan.

A/N: So here it is finally lol sorry I took so damn long XD

So this chapter is like really long for me, and I mean it was a lot to type. haha It isn't the longest chapter ever, but hey it;s pretty damn long for me.

So yeah this chapter is pretty important, it's mostly Keira trying to straighten up her feelings and also the start of the plot. Operation get Jamie to believe again.

so yeah, don't forget to comment! (btw, to those who have commented before, I'm pretty sure that If you delete your history you can comment on the same chapter twice, It's happened to me a few times. But I'm not totally positive)

Anyways! Don't forget to tell me which one should get the girl! ;P I wanna know Jack? or Jamie?