Hey y'all, I won't bore you with a long author's note. The next three chapters take place at least fifty years after the events of chapter one. Keep that in mind. Jack has been with North for fifty years now, so while he may act guarded with other spirits, he's more open with North. Hope he doesn't seem too out of character, but I figure he's bound to be a bit more trusting considering he hasn't had to fend for himself three-hundred years , especially towards North.

North hadn't so much planned on Jack meeting the other Guardians, as it had simply happened. The first to formally meet Jack was, no surprise, Sandy. The Sandman was already fond of Jack, of the way the young winter spirit would sometimes skim him fingers over the lazy trails of dreamsand that floated through the night sky, eliciting little golden snowflakes and snowmen to pop into existence. He enjoyed the dreams of snowball fights and sledding, of hot chocolate and snow angels that inevitably followed after the children had a snow day with the boy.

So, when one especially stormy night drags on at the Pole, and the yetis wake North at a positively dreadful hour, beside themselves with worry, North calls Sandy.

North isn't sure if it's the harsh smack-smack-smack of ice and wind against his window, or the light that spills in from the doorway as Phil enters the room, but he's awoken with a start either way. The yeti is beside himself, crying half-hysterically to North that the Little One was having a nightmare.

North is out of bed and speeding down the hallway toward Jack's room a second later, Phil shouting worriedly in his ear as they go.

"The whole workshop is covered in ice! We though the Little One was playing one of his pranks at first, but we couldn't find him anywhere! I went to his room, I thought maybe he was hiding in there, but when I opened the door he was on the bed. He was asleep, but he was shivering and crying in his sleep and the whole room was frozen over! I couldn't wake him; I couldn't even shake him awake. He was so cold, touching him burned." Phil rambled. Though he didn't say it, North could read the fear, the worry in his voice. He was worried about the boy.

They arrived at Jack's door, still ajar from Phil's rushed exit, and so North could hear the quiet, frightened cries from the lump trembling on the bed. The room was easily thirty degrees colder than the hallway, and North worried for a moment that he might get frostbite from being there too long, before he discarded the thought as unimportant.

He approached the bed and took a seat on the edge of it in order to reach Jack, leaning over the mattress, rock-hard and slick with ice, and gently settles a hand on Jack's back. Phil was right, even through the blanket and Jack's hoodie, the cold burns his hand, but he doesn't pull away. Instead he rubs circles into Jack's back and makes eye contact with Phil from where he's standing in the doorway.

"Phil, call Sandy. Please."

Phil nods resolutely, and spins on his hill to call his fellow Guardian. North turns his attention back to Jack, taking a deep breath and pulling the boy up and against his chest, pushing himself further onto the freezing bed in the process. He cradles a senseless, sobbing Jack to him and hushes the boy. With Jack held against him, he can see the boys face and it worries him more.

Jack is so pale his face is tinged blue, and there's a fine layer of frost decorating his face and hair. He's crying, the tears freeze before even leaving his eyes, effectively gluing his eyes shut in a squeezed, pained expression. His body, dwarfed by North's much bulkier frame, trembles uncontrollably.

Jack has had nightmares before, has even talked to North about them a bit. He's never seen the boy in a state like this, so thoroughly entrenched in his nightmare that he's completely oblivious to everything else. In the past, North (sometimes Phil) have always been able to wake the boy, even if it means a sleepless night spent curled up on a sofa in the globe room, watching the lights on the globe twinkle brightly.

North doesn't know how much time passes as he simply holds the boy—his boy, because North can be honest with himself. He'd never had his own children, even when he was still human, but he'd always loved them. He'd always wanted to protect them. Inviting Jack into his workshop that day, and every day thereafter, had only increased that feeling.

And then Sandy is there, preceded by tendrils of gently glowing dreamsand that have already drifted to the bundle in North's arms. It settles like a blanket around the boy as Sandy lands softly on the bed beside North, his stubby hand reaching out to settle lightly on Jack's head.

Almost immediately, Jack releases a sigh a goes limp against North. The trembling lessens, stops, and his breathing evens as a mini dreamsand version of North materializes in front of him. A moment later, the dreamsand-North is hit square in the face by a snowball, conjured by a dreamsand-Jack who is now doubled over with silent laughter.

The scene elicits a chuckle from North and a bright smile from Sandy. Sandy's hand remains on Jack's head, carding his fingers gently through silver hair, long after the boy has settled into a deep, dreamless sleep. North can tell that Sandy is hooked, that Jack has another Guardian wrapped thoroughly around his frosted finger. And that's fine, Jack is an easy boy to love.

They never speak of that night, and North isn't sure if Jack even remembers it happened. But from then on Jack has a bright, sweet smile for Sandy whenever he shows up at the workshop; and Sandy makes sure to send a tendril of dreamsand to the Pole every night, just in case.

Alrighty, next chapter will be Jack's first introduction to Tooth! Stay tuned, I should have another update for you relatively soon!

-Ginny