Jack felt every bone in his bone creak in pain. Damn that Pitch!

Strangely, he heard the sobs of a child. He wondered who in MiM could be here out in the arctic when there had only been him, Jackie and Pitch.

Then it hit him like a ton of snow.

Jackie. He had heard her cry out in pain before there was a loud sound of an avalanche very close to where he was.

It took Jack a few seconds to figure out what had happened.

Pitch must have overpowered Jackie with him out of the picture then all but buried her in an avalanche. However...Pitch didn't notice Jack had filched Jackie's teeth and swapped them for his own.

Jack placed a hand on the container...and was suddenly absorbed by Jackie...no, Evergreen Potter's memories.

The little girl was crying. She had been thrown out by the mean woman and the doors were all locked. She didn't dare break a window, because she knew they would beat her even worse.

It had happened once, and she didn't want to nearly die again.

Suddenly there was a soft thump outside the dog house that had been there since before the man had bought the house. It was mostly used for Ripper, the dog that belong to the man's sister. It worked as a shield for the worst of the wind. She didn't mind the cold, but the wind was worse.

"Hey there...you okay kiddo?" asked a voice.

She peeked outside. There was a teen leaning against the dog house. He had hair as white as snow, playful teal eyes and a weird staff that looked like a Shepard's crook.

"I can't get inside. And she'll hit me if I get in," she said.

"Hmm...sounds to me like you need a distraction!" said the boy cheerfully.

She looked curious, a good sign to the teen outside the tiny shelter.

She let out a startled laugh as he took her flying, and suddenly the wind didn't seem so bad to her.

For the next few days, the two of them played whenever she managed to get locked out. She felt sad when winter's chill was forced to retreat by Easter's spring.

She found that she loved winter now, though she had been forced to forget when she turned ten. Suddenly her ability to see the boy had disappeared without warning, and she had wept because she had lost the only friend she had ever known in her short life.

The man had beat her black and blue when he found out she had an 'imaginary' friend who only showed up during the winter. He said a freak like her didn't deserve a friend before throwing her into the cupboard.

Jack gasped, tears running down his face.

Now he remembered why he had been so strongly attracted to Jackie when he found her in that glen. She had been the girl who had been able to see him!

His anger towards Pitch grew...somehow he had the feeling that jerk was responsible for him forgetting her like the Guardians, or perhaps his nature had touched briefly enough on what gave the Guardians the ability to fight Pitch Black long enough for whatever spell he used to erase Jack's memories of her.

Poor Jackie.

Jack put the teeth back into his pocket, and grabbed his staff, or what was left of it. He could figure out how to fix it later, she needed him more.

Jack concentrated on the ice that separated them. At first it wouldn't budge, but he was more than a mere ice apparition, he was Winter's touch on the world, the spirit of the North wind that brought winter's chill to every country on Earth. Ice, snow and winter was his domain.

Even North couldn't hope to hold a candle to his power over ice. Only Jackie.

Jack gasped as he phased through the icy sheet and into a recently made cave of snow, earth and rocks. Inside was a little girl with white hair and threadbare dress crying her eyes out. Jack solidified the roof above them, causing the room to light up a little from all the white.

He gently held Jackie...no, Evergreen, in his arms as she cried. He spoke comforting words to her, letting the love he felt for her come out of him and into her.

She had been denied such a simple emotion her entire life, barring her pet owl. When Hedwig had been murdered, her world fell apart at the seams.

Jack didn't notice it, but Evergreen's teeth were glowing from inside his sweater pocket. It took him a moment to realize that Evergreen had been growing at an accelerated rate back into the age he was so familiar with.

Suddenly his teal eyes meet emerald...and to his eternal shock she kissed him. Not a sisterly kiss, or on the cheek, but a full kiss on the mouth. Once the initial shock passed, Jack returned it with vigor.

All these years with Jackie, and they had never once acted on their teenage urges. They were confused, lost. Both had died far too young and turned into spirits before ever touching another outside of family, though Evergreen had been denied even that much.

So when both of their defenses were down and they realized that they did love each other more than as friends or even as brother and sister, those urges shot to the forefront.

Here, inside this dome of ice far from sight of the Man in the Moon or even Pitch, they finally acted their physical age.

Suddenly the teeth that Jack had stolen burst into a bright silver light and shot up through the ice. Jack and Evergreen looked at each other when they felt the rumble above them and once they were clothed they phased through the ice.

Getting above the crevice, Evergreen and Jack stared in absolute disbelief.

There was an ice castle where the battle between Jackie and Pitch had taken place. A rather nice one at that.

They landed and cautiously went inside.

Evergreen's eyes widened in shock when an ice phoenix, a being so rare and pure that it was even more sought out compared to a normal phoenix like Fawkes, flew from outside and to the outstretched fist of Evergreen.

Hail and well met, Evergreen, Queen of Winter's touch.

She looked at the phoenix in shock. She recognized this feeling.

"Hedwig?" she asked, her heart not daring to hope.

The phoenix trilled in an oh-so-fond manner and started to preen Evergreen's hair the way Hedwig used to.

"How is this possible?" asked Jack.

The Man in the Moon is not blind, nor is he a fool. When he realized what Pitch had done to the one magical capable of killing spirits if used correctly, he had my broken body absorb the Ice Maiden's Frozen Tears and turned me into a phoenix. When your heart finally filled with the love you were denied for so long, he allowed me to return.

"Filled with... On second thought, I don't need to know," said Evergreen with a massive blush.

"What did you mean Queen of Winter's Touch?" asked Jack, also blushing heavily.

Evergreen Potter, or Jackie Frost, is the new Queen of Winter. And you, Jack Frost, are her consort. Winter's King. Have you never wondered why your powers are stronger when you are with her?

Jack never thought to ask.

She is the darkness to your playful light. Pitch did his job too well, and now there is a perfect counter to his evil. So long as you have each other, you'll never be alone again.

Then, as an afterthought Hedwig added...

And since the Guardians missed you because of Pitch's work, the Man in the Moon has decided to create a neutral party so that this never happens again. The only one until now had been Sandman, and without him the balance is tipping too strongly in Pitch's favor.

"So basically we wouldn't be Guardians, but a fail safe in case Pitch tries to create a new player like he did with me."

"I think I like that option better," said Jack.

"We need to find the last child. If Pitch gets to him then it won't matter if the Guardians rescue him. He won't be able to see them," said Evergreen.

Jack nodded in agreement.

Jack was in England, there to bring the last of winter's chill to the place before he moved to Russia for a while. He heard sobbing from a small remote glen that he occasionally saw unicorns eating out of, with Centaur bodyguards. After an attack on them a few years ago, they had been quite vigilant until the monster who killed them was finally brought to justice. Only Hagrid and that odd blond girl was allowed anywhere near them now, though the blond was an odd duck in his opinion.

"You alright?" he asked. Why did he feel like he should remember her?

He saw the upturned earth, then looked at her.

"Was it yours?" he asked gently.

She nodded miserably and the shock of the fact she could hear him sent shivers of excitement into his body. And a few other sensations he had no idea what they were.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Murder," she whispered as a new sob racked her body. Jack immediately went to hold her. His job as the voice of the North Wind could wait...she needed him more. Besides the temperature was already dropping like a stone for some reason and he knew that it wasn't his work. Too cold. Any child caught in this would die within seconds.

To his eternal shock and joy, he was able to hold her in his arms without her going through like so many had before. She leaned in desperately into his much colder body, and he heard the Man in the Moon speak for the first time since his awakening.

Jackie.

Was that her name? Either way he wasn't leaving her here.

Once she had fallen asleep in his arms, he carefully maneuvered her body so that he could support her while he took to the skies. He needed to get her out of here...someone was coming and he had the feeling it wouldn't be a good thing if they found her like this.

A newly created spirit (she took to the wind with ease, meaning she wasn't human anymore) was most vulnerable when their object of power or if they were really unlucky, their true name was used. Or, in Jackie's case, within the first twenty four hours of their first use of their natural abilities.

She had just been turned, so if any magicals found her now they could kill or worse bind her. He memorized the glen, as that was where she had been reborn as a winter spirit.

That spot would be the root of her power, should he have to bring her back.

He had no idea that had he not shown up, Pitch Black, the ruler of darkness, would have taken her and turned her vengeance into a weapon against the Guardians.