WHEN YOU WISH UPON A STAR

Grayscale (Part One)

Ever since outgrowing childhood and the times of wonder, joy and fun, thirty-six year old Jamie Bennett has been leading an otherwise uneventful life. Married, living in a town without snow, working all year round, with two teenage children who don't have time for the Tooth Fairy or Santa anymore, it's been years since he's seen snow – or the one who puts the fun in it.

It's only because he moved from his chilly hometown, Burgess, to the warm, sunny coast of Australia for a job that doesn't see it every winter season. But, Jamie Bennett is a family man – if he needs to support them, he puts them first, no matter what, even if it means putting everything he believes in on hold.

The only sparks of color of his gray-scale adulthood were the times his children began to believe too.

The first time his daughter ever lost a tooth, he remembers reading her a bedtime story, falling asleep in her room, then being woken by an excited little girl bouncing up and down on the bed with a dollar the Tooth Fairy left for her. The first time his son ever had a nightmare, he woke up terrified, and then suddenly fell back asleep with a smile on his face – Jamie knew it was the work of a little gold man with a heart of the same value. Their first Christmas together, Jamie hadn't needed to dress up like Santa Claus to put presents under the tree because he knew North would come for them – and indeed he did. And at Easter, Bunnymund had done his job bloody well to make his children's first Easter egg hunt memorable, as well as every one after that.

So, although mostly uneventful, his life isn't at all bad – it has its moments, he has people to share it with. He has a lovely wife, two nice-enough kids, a job that pays well even if it bores him, and a beach-side view to wake up to. Living in Australia isn't all too bad either – the weather's a bit strange and everybody has an accent like Bunnymund and uses words like 'crikey' and 'ankle-biter', but his family is happy. So he is too.

Mostly.

Because there's one guardian he hasn't yet seen, and might not see ever again.

The white haired boy, no more than seventeen or eighteen, with skin pale and eyes clear as glass who made it snow in his bedroom all those years ago. The one who took him on a crazy sleigh ride through town, and knocked out his front tooth – the one who made him believe, saving his wonder and restoring his faith.

He doesn't know if he'll ever see Jack Frost again.

With another winter passed after many winters gone, there's been no sign of him. Spring has approached, but it doesn't stop Jamie Bennett from wishing for the frosty, snow-less winter wind to blow back and bring his favorite guardian with it.

Every cold winter morning, he wakes up before his wife and peeps out the window first thing, to see if there is a sign of snowfall. There's always none, but his hope is yet to be crushed – thirty six years old and still going strong.

Still, an emptiness fills him when, on particularly frigid mornings, he flings the curtains open, expecting a white powder to have settled over his front lawn in the night, but he sees none.

The first morning of spring comes no different – opens the curtains, expects snow, sees none, then goes to greet his family in the kitchen.

"Good morning, all!"

He's greeted with a disgruntled reply from his son and silence from his daughter. Jamie sighs – he's certain he was no more mature as a teenager than he was as a child. His mindset back then, as his parents had described, 'evolved surely albeit slowly' – he had been the steadiest in 'growing up' out of all his friends, and by the time they were already into big toys like cars, he was still in awe of the giant Christmas toy displays they would put up in the mall every December. Part of him wished that when the time came, his own children would grow as timelessly as he had, but now he realizes that was all just wishful thinking – still is.

He halfheartedly drops down into a seat at the table, on the right of his thirteen year old son with console in hand. Mike is the type to be enthralled, as he himself had been in youth, but it's usually only by the newest video game or tech gadget.

"What are you playing there, Mike?"

His son looks up from his game to his father slowly, raises his eyebrows and goes back to blasting aliens with plasma guns without a word. Sighing, Jamie turns to his sixteen year old daughter, Alice, a pretty girl resembling her mother, but hardly as sweet. Her father can't begin to imagine how someone looking so sweet could have such a sour personality, or why her phone seems to be surgically attached to her hand at all hours of the day.

"Are you on the Internet there, Alice?"

She responds by wordlessly bobbing her head to the music blasting from her headphones, unable to hear him.

"Alice!"

Finally, she stares up at him begrudgingly, sliding the headphones off.

"What?"

"Would you check the weather for me? It's meant to drop below ten degrees in the next few weeks which means—"

"—which means it might be cold enough to snow, yeah. I know, I had the answer ten years ago."

Alice returns to her phone screen, slides her headphones back on, but not without rolling his eyes first.

"Well, is it going to snow this week?" Jamie tries weakly. This time, Mike eyes his father with a sideways stare.

"Dad, we live on the coast. In Australia. There won't be any snow, because there is no snow, any day of the year," he says as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"Yeah, Dad, it's seriously never going to snow here. We practically live next to the beach, it's too hot anyway, it'd melt. Sixteen years here, you should know." Alice interjects loudly.

"You know, it is nearly Christmas season. Back home, it snows for days and days." Jamie says grinning.

Both the children groan as they dig into their cereal.

"What?"

"You've told us every story about Burgess, like, a billion times. Especially the snow ones." Alice says, rolling her eyes and shoveling a spoonful into her mouth.

His wife thankfully enters the room before they can begin another rally against Dad and his precious snow. She leans down and plants a kiss on his cheek before making coffee for herself.

"Don't roll your eyes at your father, he's just trying to enlighten you to something you've never seen before," his wife interrupts gently, placing her hands on her hips, "don't you want to see the snow, Alice?"

Alice shrugs her shoulders nonchalantly.

"It's just frozen ice. Falling from the sky. Whoopee."

Jamie lets his spoon clatter loudly into the bowl. All three family members turn to stare at him.

"Alice, it's more than that, so much more." He starts – he can feel a long, inspirational spiel that his children and wife probably don't want to hear coming on - but he thinks back to a moment, so many years ago: a white haired boy, sudden snow, and the cold in the room nipping at his nose.

"It's joy, it represents joy and it brings you joy. It brings your friends and loved ones closer, and it's laughter and happiness and fun."

Happiness that has not been seen for over ten years, not since he was eighteen and no longer considered a child. His light on the globe went out, faded away. But the light in him continues to shine brightly forward. He still believes, a thirty-six year old man, in Jack Frost. He believes in all of them, all the Guardians, because they are within him.

"That's…kind of lame, Dad."

"Totally lame. I'm never going to get your weird obsession with snow."

And his momentary wonderment comes crashing down. Jamie sighs and rubs his temples.

"Honestly, you two, you act like you know so much, yet you're so young…" he begins, and is met with groaning again.

"Here we go again," Alice rolls her eyes.

"Again with the aging too fast thing, Dad, give it a rest for a bit, would you? We gotta get to school anyway." Mike says, patting his father on the back and rather hesitantly as he swings his knapsack over his shoulder.

They leave without another word, and Jamie just slouches down into his chair, silently gnawing at his cereal. His wife's glance on him lingers a little too long over her coffee mug.

"It's technically not an obsession, is it, Clara?" Jamie asks weakly. She smiles kindly and takes a sip of her drink.

"I suppose not. But you do like snow an awful lot."

Jamie grins broadly, "It's not a bad thing."

"No, it's not, but when you're more excited about a little bit of ice falling from the sky – and don't give me a speech about that later – than your children, it is a bit…strange."

"It's not just about the snow. It's what it means to me."

"I know, honey, but just don't go overboard with it, okay?" It is spring, and we did get through the whole of winter without snow."

"The first few weeks of spring are actually as cold as, if not colder, than an average day in winter." He tries again, but by this point Clara has already decided to obligingly agree, so she won't have to deal with his issue again later.

"If you say so, dear."

September means the passing of winter, and it also means another year of waiting for Jack Frost to come back, which he knows he never does. But every day after work, when it's dark and cold, he'll take the scenic route home – walking alone through the town square, like he used to wander around Burgess as a child. The town statue reminds him of the one back home that Jack had once accidentally sled him into to knock his tooth out. It's a memory that always makes him smile.

"Where are you, Jack…" he murmurs to himself. As if on cue, the moon reappears from behind some clouds. Jamie stares up at it, huffs – that's not what he was looking for – and continues his journey home.

Later that night, Jamie leans against the door frame of Mike's room to see his son playing another of those first person shooter games teenage boys like so much.

"Mike, time for bed."

Mike grunts softly, and Jamie obligingly takes it as an answer, leaving the room. It's never been clear to him at what level of relationship he stands with his son – sometimes it's really good and they're best friends, and occasionally, he's completely ignored when Mike's having school or girl trouble. But generally, he'll come through for his old man.

"Hey, Dad?" Jamie suddenly hears from Mike, and returns to see his son has already switched the game off.

"Yeah?"

"I just wanted to say, uh, I'm…sorry that we got all weird at breakfast."

"It's okay."

"But can you just tell me, once and for all, why you like the snow so much?"

"Do you really want to hear that?"

"Well, yeah," Mike scratches the back of his neck sheepishly, "and don't say that it's because it's joy and fun and stuff. I know it's more than that."

Jamie just smiles, leaning against the door frame.

"Well, that is a long story, son. And if I told you, I don't think you'd believe me, anyhow."

Mike looks at him long and hard, and folding his arms over his torso, says, "Try me."

So they sit on his bed, and Jamie recounts the entire story of the Guardians – the first snow day, the sleigh ride with an invisible winter spirit, when Santa, the Tooth Fairy, Sandman and the Easter Bunny appeared in his room and he saw them for the first time, and having his faith restored by Jack Frost. And of course, he and his friends saving the Guardians – they had been worth protecting.

As he finishes, Mike is already in bed, only barely awake, but he has a smile on his face.

"You have weird stories…Dad…I know they're not true…but I guess…they're still…kind of cool…"

And he drifts off to sleep. Jamie smiles sadly to himself, sliding off Mike's bed. He never had really taken the time to realize what a big boy his son had become - the cartoon posters on the walls have been replaced by ones of his favorite bands, the little action figures scattered on his desk now game consoles and gadgets.

But the rabbit is still there, the little stuffed rabbit he had as a child. It's old and frayed with fluff sprouting out of the seam in its back, but it's still so special to Jamie. His kids just don't know it – the toy is just sitting innocently in Mike's room, neglected.

"Hey, old friend," he thinks, and smiles in spite of himself,"I believed in you for a long time. My whole life, in fact."

It is a bit silly, a fully grown adult talking to a stuffed animal like a ten year old, but it's all he has left, really. It did work all those years ago.

"I need you to give me a sign. Like, right now. I know I'm crazy for wanting it to snow in spring, but tell me I'm not crazy for still believing, in all of you; tell me you're still here watching over me."

He waits, long and still. No Guardians appear, no magic sand, no fluttering of a hummingbird's wings, no nothing. No Jack.

A/N: So I don't really know how the adults and Guardians thing is supposed to work - so as I understand it, adults are no longer able to see Guardians even if they still believe in them, their light goes out on the globe - let's pretend it makes sense. Also, I don't own Rise of the Guardians or its characters. Thank you for reading!