A/N: And here we are. The end of the line. This story was supposed to be 25,000 words—for a little perspective, that would've ended it about chapter 11. Then it was supposed to end after chapter 24. Now, 76,000 words later, it finishes. What a month. xD It's been great. I love everyone who is reading this right now. I hope you'll let me know how you feel now that it's over.

Fanfiction and I grew apart many years ago, and this has been a wonderful one-month stand but I've come to realize that we're just not meant to be together. *tragic swoon* I'm sure I'll never really let go, though, and I'll probably cheat on original fiction again in the future—I still have so many FF ideas. :p In the meantime, back to the real world of revision and (hopefully) publication!

Love and hearts,

Kit

32 (How to Survive the Winter)

The Guardians are waiting for him.

He falls free in North's workshop, which glitters as it always has. A yeti leaps forward and wrestles the snow-globe away from him, presenting it to North with a bow. Jack rolls his eyes as he climbs to his feet, dusting himself off.

"As if I wouldn't give it back," he says, leaning back against a workshop table. "Look at how much trouble it's caused me."

"But you fixed it?" North says sternly.

"I fixed it," Jack confirms, then pauses. "Shouldn't you guys not remember it, if I fixed it?"

"Oh, I kept the old memories safe," says Toothiana, fluttering nervously back and forth. "I knew they would change, see, so I just… I just took a few teeth!" She casts an anxious glance at the other Guardians, but none of them look upset. "We all agreed it was more important to remember what could have happened."

"Ah," says Jack, and looks down, scuffing his foot on the floor. No frost spirals outward. Alarmed, he straightens upright, spinning around; he sweeps toys off the table with his staff, to the distressed howls of the yeti who took the snow-globe, and plants his palm on the wooden surface. "No, no no no—"

Nothing happens; no lacelike patterns paint the table, no blocks of ice encase the fallen toys. "No no no no no no!" He pivots, feeling the warm water running across the newly-glazed surface of his staff. It drips from the icicle embellishments, splashing onto his knuckles like tears. "Why is it gone again?" he asks. The others just stare at him. "Why is it gone again?"

A blur of images flits above Sandy's head, frustrating both of them because nobody understands. It flickers through another series of vague shapes, then ends with a fluttering gold butterfly that falls out of the air. Jack narrows his eyes at it.

"It was only temporary?"

Sandy nods. He holds up one hand, and the tiniest trickle of sand falls—not more than a few golden grains. "There wasn't enough," Jack whispers. He sinks to the ground, letting his staff clatter beside him, holding his head in his hands. "It was only a dream."

A shadow falls over him and he flinches, certain for a moment that it's Pitch, somehow—but it's only North, kneeling beside him to put one enormous consoling hand on his shoulder. "Man in Moon says—" he starts, and Jack jumps to his feet, shoving North's hand away.

"I don't care!" he shouts. "Forget the Man in the Moon! I'm sick of the silent treatment! If he ever—if he just—if he wants to say something to me, he can say it in person!"

"Well, alright then," says a voice behind him, "if you insist."

Jack whirls around to see a short, round man with a bald head and one tuft of hair like a question mark standing on the table that's been cleared of toys. He holds a staff not unlike Jacks, but more intricate, the crook at the top a crescent moon; Jack looks down at his own staff and kicks it away from him. He turns away in disgust.

"You've done good work, Jack."

Jack makes a scathing noise, but doesn't look back. "I don't have anything to say to you."

"I find that hard to believe," says the Man in the Moon—who is not, at present, in the moon. "Considering how much you usually have to say to me."

Jack pivots, ready to yell for the Man in the Moon to shut up—but he finds he cannot bring himself to, not after three centuries of begging for him to speak. Instead, he just glares, fists shoved sullenly into his pocket.

"Once you called me friend."

"It was an accident," says Jack grumpily. A hundred thousand questions are bubbling up inside him, and the loudest is why—why everything, why bring him back, why ignore him for three hundred agonizing years, and why show up now to break the silence.

Tsar Lunar XII sits down on the table, swinging his feet over the edge. "You've sacrificed everything," he says. "Twice now. Some might call that excessive."

"Thanks for reminding me," Jack snaps, narrowing his eyes at his feet.

"Once for ice powers," continues Tsar Lunar ponderously, "and once to lose them. Twice for love, though," he adds.

"I don't need a recap!" Jack yells, turning away to stalk off. The other Guardians line up behind him in an impenetrable wall. Bunny eyes him as if daring him to fight.

"I can give them back," says Tsar Lunar. Jack goes still.

"You've earned them. You certainly deserve them."

"Elsa's dead," says Jack flatly. "I don't deserve anything." With one foot he flicks his staff, plain wet wood once again, up into his hand. Then he turns, runs, and vaults over the railing before anyone can stop him.

He drops to the next level, grabbing the rail as he plummets past and swinging himself over. The clockwork snow-globe is back in his hands, stolen from North's long coat as he leaned consolingly over Jack—but this time Jack doesn't need to travel through time.

He shakes the snow-globe and throws it on the ground with more force than necessary. Then, with elves jangling the alarm behind him, he jumps through to Burgess.

-o-

School's just letting out when Jack steps out into the streets draped with autumn. He kicks through dry rustling leaves and leans against the schoolyard fence, fingers laced through the chain-link diamonds, forehead pressed to the metal as he searches for Jamie or any of his other friends. Jamie spots him first—Jamie always spots him first—and comes running, calling over his shoulder to Pippa and Cupcake and all the rest. Jack climbs over the fence and crouches on top, the metal biting into his bare feet.

"That was so boring, hey, are we gonna have another snow day tomorrow, Jack? What do you think?"

Jack looks down at him, smiling humorlessly, and shakes his head. "Nah," he says, resting his staff across his knees. "You gotta learn something sometime, don't you?"

"You can teach us plenty! You've seen a lot, haven't you?"

"Sure," says Jack. "But teaching sounds just as bad as learning." He grins half-heartedly and hops down to stand in front of the kids, cocking his staff up to his shoulder.

"We can have some fun now, though, can't we, Jack?"

Jack hesitates; his grip on his staff tightens until his knuckles turn white. "I've got a question for you guys."

"Do we have to raise our hands if we know the answer?"

"No." Jack crouches down so that he's eye-level with Jamie. "If I didn't have powers, would you still believe in me?"

Jamie grins. "You don't stop believing in winter just 'cause it's summer, do you?" he says.

Jack smiles and rubs his fingers together. A single snowflake revolves in the air above his hand, jagged and flowered, then drifts slowly to the ground.

-o-

First, he went to her funeral. Of course he went to her funeral.

He soared over the emerald expanses of spring in Arendelle, tossing pale pink flowers on a chill breeze, making sure to avoid the path that Kristoff, Anna, and the children were taking back to the castle. He hid in the rafters and the unused rooms for three days while they prepared the kingdom for mourning and bustled through the dilapidated spaces, trying to restore some semblance of order. Jack laughed to himself to have to secret himself into the chapel, reflecting on how he'd been invisible days before, and now he had to work to not be seen. He tried not to leave icy tracks on the windows or floor, but he thought Anna and Kristoff noticed.

If they did, they didn't say anything.

Elsa's funeral procession was white. It was as if, just for a few hours, the kingdom were blanketed in snow once again: alabaster banners draped the walls of the city; colorless flowers were strewn through the streets. The mourners trailed behind her like a great river of snow. Her dress was embroidered in iridescent strands of pearls and lace—not a fragment of real ice to be found among them, but decorated so skillfully as to look like the whole thing was frosted. Jack recognized the spiraling blossoms as his own, cradling her personal, jagged snowflake across the flare of her bodice.

He wanted to land and walk beside her, to touch her face and feel her frozen skin, but instead he soared overhead, supported by the wind, straining his eyes for every detail. Anna and Kristoff flanked her bier; Sven pulled it through the streets, his antlers hung with fluttering strips of white ribbon. The children ran behind, holding snowflake-shaped pinwheels high in the air—as if they knew.

Jack indulged them, and a gentle breeze sent them all to spinning.

They took her across the fjord, through the town and up onto the hill, where the grass rustled in the spring wind and a grave already waited between the old king's and queen's memorial stones. They lowered Elsa's body into it—and then Anna and Kristoff, Queen and King of Arendelle, turned and ushered the rest of the kingdom back down to the city where, no doubt, the mourning would go on.

They left the grave open and Elsa exposed to the bright spring sky.

When he was sure the last of them were gone, Jack dropped out of the air, alighting beside the gaping wound in the earth. He sat down on the edge of it, then dropped to cram himself into the grave beside the former queen. One hand reached out to touch her cheek; frost spiraled across her skin, painting stars and thorns beneath her eyes. Her dress whispered in the breeze; threads of her cornsilk hair frayed out of her tightly-woven funereal braid, dusting across her forehead. Her hands were crossed over her chest, clasping flowers hand-carved from ice and already melting in the vernal air. They stained the patch above her heart into a dark blot that spread down the silver threads like veins.

Jack brushed his hand over the flowers, freezing them into intricate whorls of petals and pearls. Maybe true love's kiss will wake her up, he remembered, and smiled bitterly.

He leaned over, pressing his mouth to hers. White frosted her lips where they touch, feathering the cracks like sugar. She wasn't any colder than she ever was, but she was so—

Very—

Still.

Jack launched himself out of the grave, and it iced over behind him as he threw himself into the wind.