Six years ago today, I posted the first chapter of this series to FFN. Now here we are, at the end.

For a while there, I was starting to think we'd never get this far.

Thank you so much to everyone who has read even a single chapter of this series, and especially to those who took a moment to share their thoughts with me! It's you guys who made all this possible.

Guest reviewers, please know that I can no longer respond to your reviews, but I read and appreciate every single one.

Guest Review Responses:

Milly34k: I'm really happy you liked it!

Demi clayton: This is the last one!

Tuglover98: Your review made me so happy I shared it with my partner and we freaked out together hahaha

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Stopping by the Woods

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It was funny how change could sneak up on you.

For three-hundred years, Jack's life had been stagnant. Every winter, he'd spread snow and mischief, and try and try and try to find someone who could see him. And every winter, he was left disappointed.

In hindsight, he knew it couldn't have gone on forever. He'd been getting close to the end of his rope, and with every failure he became more isolated and bitterer at the spirits who could see him but chose to pretend they couldn't. How many more seasons would he have lasted, he wondered, before he broke down and became the very threat he had been called in to fight?

He owed Pitch a lot, it seemed.

The whole Easter debacle had been more excitement than Jack had experienced in a long time – and the most consistent social interaction since he woke up in the lake. But even then, when everything had started to calm down, the change really wasn't as big as it had felt. The Guardians weren't yet his friends, even though he'd joined their ranks, and six believers in a town he could only visit once a year wasn't a lot in the grand scheme of things.

But it had been a start, and a stepping stone to the better things waiting for him.

Standing on the ice where he'd started, Jack looked up at the full moon.

The first time, he'd been alone. There'd been no mortal in the world who believed in him, and only one or two spirits who even knew he existed.

Now he had the Guardians, the seasonal spirits, the Bennetts, the penguins – all of them family. All of them more than he'd ever thought he'd get. More than he thought he deserved. Now he was believed in, and loved. And he'd never have to know what it was like to be alone again.

Maybe none of it would have happened if Pitch hadn't risen up. Maybe, if the Man in the Moon hadn't ordered the Guardians to work with him, he'd still be exactly the way he'd been his entire immortal life.

"Why did you wait so long?" he asked.

The Moon, as always, said nothing.

Well that was fine. He had long since stopped expecting an answer.

Jack dropped his gaze, and spun to stare back at the lights of Burgess. Mrs B was making his favourite tonight, and he was under strict instructions to not be late.

He would no longer wait for someone who didn't care, not when he now had people who did.

The wind caught him with contagious enthusiasm, and together they left the frozen lake and the light of the moon behind.

He didn't look back.

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The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

-Robert Frost