You know, I decided that Jack probably doesn't need belief for his powers to work. I mean, he's an element. Winter is going to keep on happening regardless of whether or not people believe in it. Tooth and North and Bunny all kind of need people to believe for them to even have something to do so they're probably more into the whole belief thing.

This chapter contains moderate movie spoilers. (Nothing I'm sure everyone wasn't expecting. It is a movie for little kids, after all. It's not like you didn't all know the bad guy was going to lose in the end and Jack was going to be all lovingly accepted into the Guardians. Come on.)

X X X

Another hundred years passed Jack by, without so much as glancing at the lonely winter spirit. But then again, time cared for no one. Time didn't slow for Santa if he was behind schedule for Christmas. It didn't wait for the Sandman to put children to sleep at night. Father Time went at his own pace, uncaring for the rest of the world, so Jack Frost shouldn't have felt too special to be ignored at well. Even so, he should have been used to being ignored by now.

But he really wasn't.

Time didn't make the feeling of abandonment any less painful in his heart.

Jack Frost had done some stupid things in the last hundred years, begging for attention—any attention at all, even if it was too be shouted at or beaten—just so he could feel something other than the endless cold and dark and emptiness inside his own soul. He needed to feel like he was real, like he existed in this world, no matter what it cost his body or his mind.

He buried Bunnymund's Easter Egg Hunt in five feet of snow one year, the Blizzard of '68 as Bunny came to grudgingly refer to it as when he threatened Jack off every Easter after that. After that disastrous holiday, Jack wasn't eager to repeat his performance regardless of all the bad attention Bunny gave him. He didn't really fancy being hit in the face with boomerangs more times than he cared to count. After the blizzard, Jack spent several hours face-down in a snow drift, hoping the swelling and pain would recede. But at least Bunny came to threaten him off each and every Easter after that. It wasn't much, but it was contact.

He tried to break into North's workshop at the North Pole several times each year, but he never got past the Yetis so it was pointless really. But he tried anyway, just for the feeling of those warm furry paws grabbing him by the back of his shirt or trousers and tossing him out the nearest window or door. The wind was always there to make sure he didn't break his neck or anything stupid like that.

He didn't do much to hinder the Tooth Fairies or Sandman. After all, both paid him specs of attention when they could spare a moment in their busy schedules. Not everyone only had to work one day a year so he couldn't really grudge them.

Mainly, he terrorized the spring-bearing spirits and the Groundhog. A few times, he had managed to get the jump on Groundhog and earned himself six more weeks of winter, but the Groundhog was mean and grouchy and it got harder for Jack each year.

Mostly, Jack Frost was alone except for the wind and the snow for another hundred years.

The modern age came with a lot of things—running water, carry-out Chinese food, indoor plumbing, fashionable hooded sweatshirts, and locks. There were a lot of locks. It had been at least fifty years since Jack had even been able to steal into bed with a child to enjoy those fleeting seconds where he could touch and be touched. Too many people didn't trust anymore, fewer children believed now, and there were so many locks. There were locks on front doors, back doors, screen doors, garages, sheds, windows, screens, and ventilation hatches. Locks, locks, locks.

And during the day, regardless of what he did or how loudly he called, no one saw or heard him. Children continued to walk right through his body and soul as they had for three hundred years. Parents warned their children about Jack Frost, but no longer spoke of Jackson Overland drowning in the nearby lake. Like Jack, the poor dead child was forgotten as well. He probably didn't even have a grave…

Jack shook his head harshly, trying to chase out those depressing thoughts. He found that if he began to think them, nothing—not even the wind—could save him from the downward spiral that tore into his raw heart and soul afterwards.

And so, Jack was locked out completely. The only sort of contact he got was looking through locked glass windows, wishing he belonged to the family inside, wishing someone would care for him and believe in him and touch him. But no one ever did. It was in moments like that when the wind would ruffle his hair and try to make him feel better, but even the wind had a family.

Jack was one of a kind, special, but no one ever thought about just how difficult that really was.

He shook his head sharply again and painted a smile on his face. If he smiled and laughed and played games, he could pretend he was happy. And if he pretended long enough, at least for a little while, it became his reality. 'Happy thoughts,' he told himself. 'Happy thoughts. Snow days!'

…

Jack Frost had come to terms with the fact that no one was ever going to see him. He had all but given up, but he knew what it felt like not to be believed in. He knew what it felt like to be walked through and not seen or touched and that was not a feeling he would wish on his greatest enemy. So, when he found that only one child in the entire world believed anymore—even though it was the child he had tried so hard to get to see him—he knew he had to do something so the child would keep believing in the others. He arrived at the window, mercifully unlocked, and peeked inside.

Jamie was sitting on his bed, covers strewn about like he had woken from a nightmare with his little legs folded in a very adult fashion. Also very adult in such a young child were the words he spoke, as if he had rehearsed for this moment.

"Alright," he told the stuffed rabbit seated before him. "You and I are obviously at what they call a crossroads. So here's what's going to happen. If it wasn't a dream—if you are real—then you have to prove it… right now."

Silence spread through the night and Jack was practically holding his breath, praying that somehow Bunnymund would hear his child crying out for proof and somehow magically answer his call. But there was a long moment where no one answered Jamie and no one seemed to even be listening… except Jack Frost, that was.

"I've believed in you for a long time so you kind of owe me," Jamie picked up the small stuffed rabbit, holding it tightly. "You don't have to do much. Just a little sign, just so I know. Anything… anything at all…" The child's eyes shone in the moonlight, so deep with hope and belief that it shattered Jack's heart.

'Come on,' Jack prayed with Jamie. 'Bunny, answer him…'

But the night remained still and silent. Just as no one ever answered Jack, no one answered Jamie.

"I knew it," Jamie whispered, a sob cracking his voice. Defeated, his shoulders slumped. He hesitated a moment, his knuckles whitening, before he tossed his stuffed rabbit away. Tears welled helplessly in his bright eyes, gathering on his lashes.

Jack gasped, his heart skipping beats. The toy gazed up at Jack as if it had a life, a consciousness. Its mismatched button eyes pleaded with Jack, begged him, or maybe that was just Jack's own desperation feeding on Jamie's despair. He saw North's globe in his mind as the very last light flickered and went dark. 'No… No. No!'

He wouldn't allow this to happen! He couldn't let the last child that believed in the Guardians to give up! Jack pushed the window open, shooting a glare at the locks he so loathed and moved his attention to the windowpane. It wasn't as if he could walk right up to Jamie and tell him that they were all real. He couldn't even show Jamie because no one believed in, saw, or heard Jack Frost.

Leaves and ribbons of frost wove across the glass, crackling slightly as they spread across two panes. Using his finger, Jack scraped away the frost to form an image. First, he drew an Easter egg, one of so many he had helped paint only to screw it all up for Bunnymund by not being there when Pitch attacked. Jack swallowed the knot in his throat.

At his back, he heard Jamie gasp.

In the second frosted pane, Jack drew a rabbit. Then, not knowing whether or not he really could but knowing in his heart that Jamie needed more than drawings in frost on his window to believe with his whole heart, Jack willed the frost to come alive in his fingers. At first, nothing happened. Then, all at once, the drawing surged from the window and bounded around the room.

Jamie sprang to his knees, laughing, as the bunny hopped all around the warm air of his bedroom. "He's real!"

Jack laughed too, laughed from his heart, because as much as the other Guardians loved and were believed in by children all over the world, Jack didn't think any of them really spent time with children. Jack did. He played with them daily, listened to them even if they couldn't hear him, watched over them, and gave them the joy of white Christmases and snow days time and again. Yes, the other Guardians were believed in and seen, but they weren't really there for the children. But Jack was. Jack always was.

Abruptly, the rabbit burst into a shower of snowflakes in the heat of the room.

'Whoops,' Jack thought and kind of wished he didn't say that so much. Why was he such a screw up? He couldn't even do this one thing right.

Jamie gasped, lifting his face to the gently falling flakes. "Whoa," he whispered, feeling the cold snow melt on his nose. He remembered his mother warning him not to let Jack Frost nip at his nose. "Snow?" Then, he suddenly whispered, "Jack Frost?"

Jack's head snapped up. "Did he just say…?"

"Jack Frost," Jamie said again, turning slightly on his bed.

"He said it again," Jack gasped. He couldn't remember the last time anyone had actually said his name as something other than a warning to keep warm in the winter's chill. "He said—You said—"

Jamie turned completely, facing Jack's direction. "Jack Frost," he whispered again, awe in his young voice.

"That's right! B-but that's me. Jack Frost, that's my name!" he gasped, caught between staggering backwards and wanting to reach out and grab hold of this moment before it escaped him forever. He moved back towards the child, hope shining in his rich blue eyes. "You said my name," he gasped out, hardly able to believe the words himself.

Jamie continued to just stare, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open in awe.

"Wait," Jack whispered because he really felt like this child was looking right at him. His eyes burned traitorously. Honestly, when would he learn that he just didn't exist to children. They never saw him, yet his lips were just as traitorous as his eyes and his heart. He found himself whispered those hateful always-unanswered words, "C-can you hear me?"

Jaime only nodded, probably less shocked to find a bare-foot frost-dusted teen in his bedroom at ten o'clock at night than Jack himself was to finally be seen.

"C-can you see me?" Jack whispered, his heart caught in his throat and choking him with desperate hope. He was certain all that was left of him would shatter like too-thin ice if this child looked away without answering him. Jack needed to be seen, finally. He couldn't even breathe as he waited for the answer.

Again, Jaime only nodded.

"H-he sees me!" Jack gasped, his lithe body weaving forward and back as the emotions overwhelmed his small frame. Frost fanned out uncontrollably at his feet. He wanted so badly to grab Jaime up in his arms and hug him, hold him, be touched after a hundred years of feeling nothing at all. "He sees me!" he shouted, his voice cracking and breaking with such happiness that it was painful.

And it was the happiest moment of Jack's long and painful life. It was a little unfortunate that he couldn't enjoy it more. After all, Jaime was the very last light on the globe and Pitch Black was coming and he had to try to save his fellow Guardians. Even so, Jack tucked this moment into his heart where he could cherish it for the rest of his life.

…

All eyes were on Pitch Black after the Guardians plus a handful of children that still believed had beaten back the tide of the Boogeyman's fear. But as Jack instigated a snowball fight and Pitch dozed in Sandman's dreamland nearby, no one paid much attention to their nemesis. No one, that is, except Jack.

After he made sure all the children were safe and happy and did what he could to drop the temperature of the cold winter air so no one would become frostbitten, he turned his attention to Pitch. The Boogeyman was staggering to his feet, brushing golden sand from his hair and shoulders. He staggered to his feet and looked around at the fun that spread in Jack's wake with something between terror and longing and desperation and panic. Or maybe it was an emotion Jack didn't even have a name for.

"How dare you have fun in my presence!" Pitch shouted. "I am the Boogeyman! And you will fear me!"

The snowball in Jack's fingers slipped from his grasp and fell among the fresh snow soundlessly. He turned to face Pitch, his heart pounding because—though he and his fellow Guardians turned to listen to Pitch's rant with half an ear—not a single child turned to even look at their fallen enemy. Laughing, Jaime ran towards Pitch and the words to warn Jaime were on Jack's tongue when the child simply passed right through Pitch harmlessly.

'Not that,' Jack thought, a hand wandering to his own chest because he knew exactly how painful that was.

Pitch gasped in shock, a pained cry escaping his lips. He clutched at his chest, looking desperately at the children, elves, and yetis. Not a single one turned to look at him even as he staggered among them, making weak sounds of pain and horror. Then, he turned his gaze desperately to the Guardians, desperate for someone—anyone, even them—to see him. Thank the Man in the Moon that all five Guardians were looking right at him with mixed expressions.

North's arms were folded, heavy brows drawn together in disapproval, clearly feeling back at his peak after the lack of faith had turned him into the old man he really was. Tooth was checking over a swarm of fairies weaving around her head. She was probably gathering the horror stories from them after being kidnapped by Pitch. Bunnymund glared, his sharp front teeth bared. Sandman, ever kind and forgiving, glanced at Pitch and merely shook his head.

The only one who looked as horrified as Pitch felt was Jack Frost, the boy he had tried to torment and kill. Jack knew what it felt like to be ignored for three hundred years. He knew what it was like to have nothing. He understood what Pitch felt inside at that moment when the children passed right through him.

In that moment, Pitch turned and fled like the shadow he was.

The Guardians quickly followed, determined to stamp out this problem once and for all. But Jack hesitated, a horrible thought crossing his mind. What if after all the pain and loneliness he went through for three hundred years, he had become just like Pitch Black? Pitch had even said he knew how Jack felt and now Jack realized just how much they had in common. His heart trembled and he quickly hurried after the others.

They had gathered on the frozen lake where he was born and had formed a veritable wall before Pitch. One by one, they threatened the nasty spirit, taking revenge for what he had done to them and the children alike. Jack hung back behind them, unable to find anything to say. His eyes were merely sad, his mouth set hard. Despite what Pitch had done to him, he felt no desire to take any form of revenge on Pitch Black—especially not now that he felt the similarities between them.

"You will never get rid of me—not forever," Pitch shouted desperately. "There will always be fear."

"So what?" North said firmly. "So long as one child believes, we will be here to fight fear."

"Really?" Pitch demanded. "Then what are they doing here?" He swept out his arms to encompass the Night Mares that crested the hills all above them.

North shrugged, unperturbed. "Can't be my nightmares," he said with a shrug. "I am not afraid."

"It's your fear," Jack breathed out, but his voice was surprisingly loud in the silence of the aftermath.

Pitch's eyes widened and he glanced desperately up at the Night Mares. He screamed as they swarmed over him, dragging him down into the depths from whence he came. Then, the world was calm and silent and dusted with a few fluffy flakes of snow. At the Guardian's backs, the children came over the crest of the hill, laughing and smiling. It was time to say goodbye.

"Jack!" Jaime shouted.

Jack turned, his staff resting on his shoulder, a soft smile curving his pale lips. Yet when he saw the child running towards him, arms outstretched for a hug, there was a moment of pure panic where Jack wanted to run. What if when Jaime reached him and went to touch him, he passed right through Jack? But Jack was tired from the battle and didn't move fast enough. Jaime threw his arms around Jack's hips and hugged him tightly, desperately.

Jack gasped, his hands frozen, unable to move. He held his breath, waiting, waiting for the pain to come when he was passed through, but it never did. All he felt was warmth—the warmth of a true touch, a true embrace. He breathed out suddenly and slid to his knees in relief. Jaime merely hugged the winter spirit around the neck, squeezing tighter and burying his face in the side of Jack's throat. Jack hugged Jaime in return, closing his eyes in bliss.

A touch… he was being touched. When his blue eyes opened slightly as Jaime moved to release him, Jack saw the other children standing there. Though they were looking mostly at Santa and the Easter Bunny, he knew they could see him. And Jaime was hugging him. And Pitch was gone. And all was right with the world.

And that was alright with Jack… so long as he had been seen and touched, even this one time…

"It's time to go, Jack," North called softly.

"Let's go home, Jack!" Tooth murmured.

"C'mon, mate," Bunny said kindly.

Sandy gestured at him, smiling.

Suddenly, Jack's raw heart warmed. Maybe, he didn't have to be alone and untouched for another three hundred years after all.

X X X

And *drum roll* we're finished. Jack is just a deliciously angsty character. It also helps that he's gorgeous and has so much room for fun development in fanfiction. Plus, he really did have so much room to turn into a villain and didn't. All that said, I'll probably wind up writing more for him in the future.

So, drop me a REVIEW, tell me what you thought. Loved it? Hated it? Too angsty? Too sad? All that good stuff?

Also, I own nothing except my original characters (none) and creative plotlines. Rise of the Guardians does not belong to me and everyone should go see it.

And NO SEQUEL. So don't ask!

Then, check out my first ORIGINAL NOVEL! The Breaking of Poisonwood by Paradise Avenger. (Summary: People were dead. When Skye Davis bought me at a slave auction as a birthday present for his brother, I had no idea what my new life was going to be like, but I had never expected this. It all started when Venus de Luna was killed and I was to take her place, to become the new savior… Then, bad things happened and some people died. In the heart of the earth, we discovered the ancient being that Frank Davis had found and created and used to his advantage. The Poisonwood—)

Questions, comments, concerns?

And so, I bid you adieu.