The Moon and Frozen Heart

Chapter 1

"What if I stop believing in you Jack? I won't be able to see you anymore."

Jack Frost looked down to the little boy who looked up at him, dark eyes tearing up and full of uncertainty. He crouched down to his eye line and put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Do you stop believing in the moon when it's not there?" The boy thought for a second, then shook his head.

"I'll miss you Jack." Jack nodded and pulled him in for a hug. The boy gave a wet sob into his shoulder, which brought a chill down Jack's spine. This child was the first to ever believe in him, to see him and know that he wasn't just some children's story. The thought brought tears to Jack's eyes, as he pulled away and gave the boy a pat on the shoulder.

"Come on Jack," He heard North say behind him. "We have more children to take care of." Jack gave one last sorrowful look to the boy before climbing onto the sleigh next to Sandy and Tooth.

"Getting too attached to the kids isn't a good idea mate," Peter Cotton tail said, turning around to face Jack from his seat. Jack chuckling to himself at the nickname he had gave him.

"You can't talk, Bunny," Jack said, eyeing the little girl with straw-like blonde hair, jumping up and down waving to them.

The Easter Bunny just crossed his arms and looked back to the front of the sleigh. Jack could swear he saw him wipe his eyes.

"Goodbye children!" North yelled in his thick Russian accent, pulling at the reins and flying off into the air.

Jack turned around in his seat to look down as the dozen children waving from below, and at the one boy clutching the front of his shirt. He gave the boy one last little wave, as him and the rest of the children turned around to go home.

"Soooo..." Jack said, turning around in his seat. "What now?" He hadn't thought of what would happen after they defeated Pitch. He just assumed it would just come naturally, or that he'd just set off once more to cause mischief in other towns. Instead he now felt as though he could do more. He didn't really feel like going somewhere where he knew no one believed in him, where he was just "an expression", as Jamie's mother had said.

Jack heard a small 'poof' noise, and he turned to Sandy. Small symbols were quickly appearing and disappearing above his head, as Jack nodded, "Thanks, Sandy. But maybe someone else should tell me." Sandy nodded, remembering no one could understand him.

"I go back to the North Pole, Bunny goes back to his Warren, Tooth back to her palace and Sandy back to his Island, and we continue to protect the children," North said, still holding onto the reins.

"Well what about me?" Jack stood up and crouched next to North, as he looked stoically over the horizon, the sun still slowly rising over the mountains.

"You can find that out by yourself, Frost. I'd think you'd be used to be on your own by now." Bunny said, grinning at Jack and laughing to himself. Jack stared blankly at him, before using his staff to make a large ball of snow fall on Bunny's head, causing him to shriek and complain to North, who merely chuckled and continued pulling at the reins. Jack was about to freeze one of his ears, before Tooth interrupted.

"You could always stay with me and my fairies," Tooth smiled, as her little fairy clones stared dreamily at Jack. "We could always use an extra pair of hands cleaning the teeth." Jack must've looked very disgusted, because Tooth immediately burst out laughing, shaking her head, and flew to the back of the sleigh. Or it could've been that she was joking, but something told Jack she was being completely serious. 

North turned around from his seat. "You can go find somewhere to stay, where you can make your magic snowballs or whatever you winter spirits do." North smiled to himself. "Or you could go out and explore the world, take a bit of a break from the large amount of responsibilities us Guardians have. As long as you come back when we call you of course," North added. "Bunny spent an entire decade trying to get the Germans to stop making nest for him to 'lay his eggs in'"