Edit A/N added a paragraph for reasons that will become known later.
New One shot this time it is Jack centered as he watches Sophie and Jackie play he thinks a little about how he missed Jackie first ten years. This takes place a few months after MLWS.
Disclaimer: I do not own Rise of the Guardians
He watched from the treetops as Jackie and Sarah played in their snow palace. A great sadness filling as he watched them play.
He missed it.
Ten years of her life that he had missed. Her first word, her first step, her first laugh, her first cry, her first day of school, they day she made her first friend, her first snow day.
All of that gone, to never return.
Oh sure he had witnessed some of them, the moon occasionally gave him small glimpses of Jackie's life, but that wasn't the same as being there when she made all those achievements. He had still never held her when she had been first born, or rocked her back to sleep when she woke from a nightmare (which thanks to Pitch he knew she must have had a lot of.) It wasn't the same as being there.
For a single solid moment he felt angry. Angry at Pitch for stealing all that time from him, at the guardians for never searching, at the moon for not revealing it to anyone, even angry at Sophie and Jamie for giving up and moving on though he knew deep down that they really had no choice.
He felt angry at the world at the injustice of being unable to see his little girl grow, at having her think that he had just abandoned them. He had told her that he never meant to leave Burgess forever but he still felt quite distant with his daughter.
Below he watched as Sarah and Jackie left the castle and ran through the woods laughing as they did so having a snowball fight.
He smiled as he watched them. Yes he had missed all those years, but he had the future with her. He could still teach her, still tell her stories, there was still time to build a relationship with her.
He started to fly down where his daughter and her best friend were playing.
"Do your mothers know you're here?" He asked the two of them an eyebrow raised, smirking mischievously.
They spun around, their eyes widened with surprise. Jackie looked to Sarah for a single brief moment and Sarah nodded encouragingly giving her a little nudge. Jackie then smiled and stepped forward to give her father a hug. Sarah held back, a satisfied smile on her face.
Feeling the little arms wrap around him, he felt satisfied, yes he missed so much, Yes she still felt uncomfortable around him, but he still had a chance to make things right, to teach her, to watch her grow.
A/N I actually ended this with Jackie willingly and excitedly running to give Jack a hug but I felt that given Jackie's anger to Jack in the most recent chapter of MLWS, that it was probably slightly unrealistic since I have several short story ideas dealing with how Jackie feels about Jack suddenly being in her life. That and she's also incredibly shy around strangers so yeah, awkwardness makes sense.