Author's Notes: I went to see Rise of the Guardians yesterday and, unexpectedly, liked it kind of a lot. I went on a grand hunt for fanfic, found very little involving the things I thought there would have been, and may just have to remedy that.

Snow Day

The men and women on the televisions aren't predicting snow, but that just makes it better. That just means that when the doors open tomorrow morning to reveal all of those freshly-scrubbed faces and tightly-packed bookbags, the joy will be matched only by surprise, and Jack has always loved surprises.

He strings the icicles like Christmas ornaments from a tree, stirs the clouds so that the snow comes in gusts, leaving banks just right for sledding. He draws shapes in the frost on the windows, freezes the last of the asparagus in the garden of little Jimmy's mom, to save him a dinner he hates. He checks the ice coating the pond not once but twice – freezes it over again for good measure, though he does not know why it preoccupies him so.

When he has finished, the snow is pristine and glistening. The moon has set, and above him, the shimmering streams of Sandman's dreams begin to dissipate as the children wake. In the east, the sky is tinted pink, and the morning birds call out in the chill dawn of a new day. Jack sits upon a rooftop, feet dangling; he swings them back and forth, forth and back, all nervous energy. The anticipation tastes like candy on his lips. He needs this, his first snowfall of the year. It has been too long since winter.

He peeks in windows as they breakfast, shoveling in cereal and waffles and toast, and when one small girl skips the table and grabs her jacket instead, barreling barefoot out into the snow with a shout of excitement, he feels his heart constrict with something very like love. She is bundled back inside, of course, given socks and boots, but no sooner has her mother packed her warmly away than she is out again with a whoop, poptart in one hand, smear of jam upon her lips.

Jack runs with her, and then flies with her, and all along the block, all across the town, the news is reported: schools are closed. Today is a snow day.

He never feels more alive than in the moment when the doors begin to open. He never feels more loved than when the children stream into the cold, chubby legs pumping, little faces red. When he plays with them, breathless and laughing, he is one among a crowd, and it is not as noticeable that they do not call his name. He can ignore that their eyes skim past him.

He helps the snow to stick for the cluster of boys making a snowman, slicks the walls of a snow fort to make it more formidable. Here and there he leaves snowballs like Easter eggs for children to find and throw at the shrieking competition. On the pond, the wind twirls the skaters about like tops, and when one little girl comes too close to the tree on the shore, a fluffy bank of snow is enough to cushion her from harm.

The buses do not run. Neither do the cars. There is no traffic in the street, and so it becomes prime sledding realty, round metal ones and long red ones and even sheets of uncut wood jostling for room. Jack guides their way, and above them, all the while, the sun creeps by in the sky, rising to a pinnacle and then finally sinking again, toward the horizon.

One by one, the children are called away as the light begins to wane. One by one, they go in for dinner, peel their scarves off and rush to warm themselves by the fire. Their numbers dwindle. Soon only one remains, and when he, too, is summoned in from the cold, Jack stands barefoot in the snow watching as the final door closes behind his last playmate.

He does not want to linger; lingering makes it worse. But all the same, he finds himself standing at windows, watching the warm light play within. They do not see him here, these happy families. They do not know how it feels- every casual hug, every tiny head tousled, every held hand sticks in his throat like a splintered shard of ice.

He wants to ask why, but there is never an answer. He wants to ask why, but he knows that no one will hear.

Above him, the first of the Sandman's dreams are beginning to glow a comforting gold, and so Jack finds an open window, as he does most nights. He slips inside to the soothing murmur of a mother's voice: "Don't let the bedbugs bite."

She is stroking her son's hair, and Jack looks away, feeling like an intruder. He wraps both arms around himself, as though he is cold.

It is not until the boy's mother has gone and the child's breathing is evened out in sleep that Jack settles in a corner, hugging his knees to his chest. He is thinking of tomorrow already, so that he does not have to think about tonight.