A Long Winter's Nap
by K. Stonham
first released 28th January 2013

It was a thousand years before Jack disappeared. And when it happened, it was not entirely unexpected.

The other Guardians had long noted how Jack seemed to be getting quieter. Thinner. There had never been much color to him, but even the faint pink of his skin had been paling, until all that could be seen against the snow was the dark of his brows and the ice-heart blue of his eyes.

They had tried to cheer him up, to invigorate him, every way they knew how, and a few new ones they invented. For a couple years, it seemed to work. But slowly the smiles grew fewer again, the laughs once more quiet.

His constant companion, when asked, looked up from his book of fables, and smiled sweetly. "Jack's tired," Jamie explained. "He needs a rest. Have you ever seen him sleep?"

The four of them looked at each another, thinking back over a millenia of acquaintance. None were able to remember so much as a catnap. One by one, they shook their heads. The Sandman, considering a swirl of his dream sand, nodded his agreement last of all.

Jamie closed his book. "I'll probably go with him," he said. "So don't worry if I disappear too."

"But... but why?" Tooth asked.

Jamie shrugged. "We're elementals, he and I. It works differently for us. And Jack needs looking after."

That was as much explanation as the youngest Guardian would give them. But it was not too many days later when North knocked on the door of the Jack's suite at the North Pole. He got no answer, so he gently opened the door. And immediately shivered.

The wide glass-ice doors that usually framed a magnificent view of the Arctic were flung open. North went to close them, then stopped, gaping at what he saw outside.

Two ageless teenagers hovered above the wintery expanse. Jack's eyes were closed; as North watched, he dissolved into thousands of snowflakes, each being borne away by the wind. Jamie glanced back at North, a small smile on his face, then shut his own eyes and followed suit. His faintly-glowing form shattered into thousands of rainbow-prisms of light, blown away after the snowflakes.

"Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff..." North breathed, eyes wide. He stepped outside, careless of the cold. Jutting up from the snow were an old wooden staff and a sheathed silver katana. He gathered up the two tools carefully, and brought them back inside. Closing the ice-glass doors behind himself, he laid the weapons on adjacent beanbag chairs, then quietly left the room, to go inform the other Guardians of the disappearance of two of their number.

During the long years that followed, there was no shortage of snow days in the world, no lessening of lights against the darkness. Somehow, in fact, the snow was even more fun, as though each flake imbued was with just a hint of joy. And each nightlight, each flashlight, each candle, seemed to hold a spark more bravery glowing in its depths.

If, during his Christmas runs, North thought he detected familiar presences in the brilliant flurries that accompanied him around the globe, he found them comforting. When Bunny railed at the snowfalls interfering with his egg hunts, he tended to end the rants with grudging admissions of sourceless echoes of familiar laughter. For Tooth's part, she confided that sometimes the winter winds seemed to help her fairies along, and that more than one bedroom had been inexplicably bright, chasing shadows away.

Sandy... well, when asked if the elementals were indeed asleep and dreaming, the Sandman just kept his own counsel, and smiled.

For a long time, those hints of their comrades were all that the remaining Guardians needed, their proof that the Guardians of Fun and Bravery were still around. But as the years passed, these encounters grew fewer, then, eventually, stopped altogether. After a time, the remaining Guardians began to accept that their friends might be gone, might be scattered formless forever. Their meetings took on a sombre tone.

Until the day when the wind knocked open the great windows of North's meeting room, blowing in sparkling white snow.

"What the blazes -" Bunny demanded, standing.

Tooth wrapped her arms around herself, shivering.

Sandy just watched the snow, wide-eyed.

North looked first at Sandy, then back at the glittering snowflakes. "Jack?" he asked, his tone incredulous and eyes widening. "Jamie...?"

Tooth straightened, eyes wide. Bunny gaped. "You don't think -" he asked. Sandy grinned broadly.

The wind blew the snow through the complex, dancing here and there, wild, untameable. Laughter echoed in its wake. The Guardians followed the flurry, remembering how first Jack and then later Jamie had always seemed at home whirling in the wind's embrace, neither its masters nor its victims.

When the gale burst open the door of the long-unused suite, it was no surprise. Nor, a moment later when they followed, was anyone truly startled to see the old shepherd's crook blown upright, the snow reforming into the shape of a white-haired teenager holding it. Even less surprising was the sparkling light separating from the snowflakes and coalescing into a second form, brunet but no less familiar. Jamie snatched up his katana, slinging it on his back the moment he was solid enough. His eyes glowed. So did Jack's.

And the life, the others saw, that had been wearing away from the pair for so long, was back in full force.

Smiling, Jack leaned against his staff. "Miss us?" he asked.

Jamie thwapped him on the back of his head. His smile was less mischievous than Jack's, but no less sincere. "We're back," he said.

Bunny sputtered. "Where have you been?!" he demanded indignantly, but his protest was largely lost in the crush of hugs, welcoming the two youngest back into the fold.

From amid the arms around them, Jack's eyes met Jamie's. "We're home," he said in perfect contentment.

Author's Note: An odd little oneshot that pretty much came out of nowhere. The title is obviously from Clement Clarke Moore's "A Visit From St. Nicholas." Which gives me the entirely unrelated mental image of Jack and Jamie shoving at one another, playfully arguing out which of them is "Mama in her kerchief" and which "I in my cap." :)