I Can See You (A Jack Frost Love Story/Rise of the Guardians Tale)

Protected

Jack Frost P.O.V.

I watched as Arabella was practically dragged out the door by her little brother-who's name I remembered was Marcello, but his sister called him Marc-and she barely had time to pull her coat. I chuckled, leaning on my staff, watching them from the roof of their house. Arabella leaned down and said something to Marc with an excited expression, and he nodded at whatever she said with a smile on his face. She laughed, taking his hand, and they started to walk down the sidewalk towards the park. I followed closely behind, landing on trees and on rooftops to get a good view of them. I knew that one of them would hear me if I came to close.

North kept saying that Marc was one of our strongest believers and Arabella was one of-if not the only-oldest believer in the world. We all thought it was strange, of course, but we knew she was important.

She was born the same year that Jamie Bennett stopped seeing me-it wasn't really his fault, though. Jamie had just grown up and matured, and told himself that all those things he saw as a kid weren't real like most of the kids once they reached a certain age, though Jamie lasted longer than the rest.

It broke my heart, really-he was the first who could see me after more than 300 years, and had become one of my best friends. I tried to talk to him, but he just ignored me. I gave up after a while, feeling disappointed and depressed. 

But then I was drawn to a hospital window as I almost passed it. It was the nursery for the newborn babies, and there was one particular baby girl next to the window that I felt drawn to. She was wide awake, big eyes looking out the window, and then she looked right at me and she smiled. I smiled a little back after a shocked moment-I had not really known that babies could see Guardians, especially newborn ones. But then, suddenly, the Man on the Moon spoke to me for the first time in a long time. He told me that this little girl was special-she was granted with the power to see the Guardians even if she stopped believing in us. Manny said that she would be important in the future, especially to me. I asked him what that meant, but of course he didn't answer me after that. All he said was that I had to protect her at all costs, because darker forces would try to corrupt her.

I didn't know what any of this exactly meant, but I protected the little girl anyway.

Her name was Arabella, as I came to find out, and she was the only child of two happily married parents. She liked playing soccer during the summer, and she absolutely loved the winter, which made me feel more comfortable. As she grew older and started to venture out, I started to really protect her especially during the winter-making sure she didn't fall or crash into the icy waters of the lake when she skated, helping her up when she fell, etc.

I had thirteen successful years, and I stopped worrying so much about Arabella. No dark forces like Pitch Black or anything of that sort even once entered her room or haunted her. I would notice that she would glance at me, and I know she would catch glimpses of the Guardians whenever they were in her sights, but she kept quiet about it for whatever reason. I was happy, thinking that if the rest of the years up to the point where she would become useful would be as easy as those first years, then I wouldn't be doing much.

But then the bus accident happened.

It had been raining a hard cold rain as the winter weather came through that early winter day, and as I watched other buses go home from school I saw that not one of them had even once skidded on the slippery street. So I wasn't concerned as Arabella's bus started to near her home, turning on the familiar corner next to the old abandoned theatre.

I never really found how the bus flipped-whether it was the rain, a patch of frost, oil from a leaking car, the bus driver turning just a little too sharply-but one second the bus was turning the corner, and the next minute the bus tilted a little bit to close to the right, and then the vehicle flipped once and landed on it's side, crashing right into a wall of the theatre. The driver flew out the windshield almost immediately, cracking his head on the asphalt. I heard screaming and crying, and one lucky kid managed to crawl away from the wreck and pull out her phone to call 911.