For the four years after that, Rachel retained her restored belief, often writing letters to Jack whenever she had something to talk about, regardless of the time of year - her messages went to Jamie's family home Burgess, though, rather than the workshop in the North Pole. And Jack never failed to visit the Bennets at least once a week, both to play with the new generation of children in his long looked after family, and receive whatever mail Rachel may have sent.

But then, for almost a whole month, there wasn't any word from her. Getting worried, Jack took to the wind on one of his free evenings, heading down the East Coast towards North Carolina. Raleigh was a pretty big city, but he knew his way around, and especially the route to the apartment where Rachel and her son Tim lived.

When Jack arrived, the lights were out, which was a little surprising, considering the early hour. The shades were drawn, too, so when the winter spirit alighted on the tiny ledge outside the living room window, he had to tap on the glass and wait for someone to answer him.

Twenty minutes and several repeated knocks later, and Jack was still perched outside. Frowning, he dropped down to the ground and ran around the corner to the main entrance of the apartment building, slipping inside after a man in a long coat. Then, it was a challenge for Jack to keep his bearings as he worked his way up stairs and down hallways to get to the door he knew had to lead to the Faire's apartment. Touching the doorknob, Jack allowed some of his ice to creep into the keyhole, then grow into a perfect for the locking mechanism. With a wave of his hand, the winter spirit had the door unlock and open, stepping forward into the apartment.

It was completely empty. That lone fact brought Jack up short, staring in shock.

The soft, second-hand furniture was all gone; in the small kitchenette off to one side, he could see that the cabinets were open and devoid of their contents. Hesitatingly stepping over to one of the three other doors, Jack peered into what should have been Tim's room. It was as devoid of signs of life as the rest of the apartment - the bed with its star-patterned comforter and pillows was gone, along with the toy chest, clothes dresser, and the tiny desk and chair set where the little boy would sit and do his homework on nights like this.

Completely baffled, Jack stumbled back out to the main room, collapsing cross-legged on the dull brown carpet. He hadn't a clue what to do next. The Faire family was just gone, without anything left for him to track them down by.

When he finally managed to drag himself back out of the apartment building and have the wind take him to the North Pole, the other Guardians didn't have any breakthrough ideas for him, either. The best plan they were able to come up with was to wait for some sign of Tim to appear - a letter to Santa, one of his teeth under a pillow, even for Sandy to catch metaphorical scent of him through the Dreamsand.

In the meantime, Jack returned to Burgess, where he related all of it to a distressed Jamie and Sophie. Since the younger of the two was on closer terms to Rachel, not to mention still being unmarried and without a family to look after, Sophie agreed to take a flight to Raleigh and see if she could track down the Faire family with human methods.

It was the best Jack could settle for.

And nine days later, they got something.

Sophie asked around with the neighbors of the apartment block, but not until she spoke with the management did she learn that a few weeks before, a small time moving company had arrived to back up everything in the Faire apartment and haul their belongings away. After that, she was directed to Rachel's workplace - a daycare center several blocks away. And there, a older woman was able to tell her that Ms. Faire had taken a few days of vacation time, to drive home and visit family. They hadn't heard from her since.

Renting a car and driving the route herself, Sophie didn't see any sign of the missing pair between Raleigh and Cooleemee. The young woman got to the residence of Rachel's aged parents, and there heard the horrifying truth.

On the night they'd been driving in, the Faire's car had been struck by a drunk driver. The man in the massive pick up truck only sustained a small head injury, and Tim had been secured in the back by his seatbelt. Rachel, though...

Rachel had been taken to the local hospital, suffering severe trauma and internal bleeding, and remained in surgery for many, many hours.

She hadn't woken up in the weeks since then.

And to make matters worse, instead of staying with his grandparents in Cooleemee, Tim's father, Micheal Karson, had taken custody of the boy, moving them both up to his ranch in New York.

The night after Sophie told him all of this, Jack flew up to the state to try and track down Rachel's son. Sandman went with the winter spirit, delivering dream sand as they went. After an hour of scouring the region, Sandy finally caught Jack's attention, directing him to a large house situated in the middle of several cattle pastures.

Gently, the Guardians came down outside a wide window lit only by a tiny bit of dreamsand. Jack felt his heart tighten as he peered inside, and spotted Tim curled up in the far corner of a massive four poster bed. The room was clearly more of a guest bedroom than meant for children, the far reaches of it barely illuminated by the dreamsand.

The worst thing he could see, though, was the little scene in gold that danced over Tim's dark hair: a trio of figures having a snowball fight - one smaller than the others, one of medium size and slim build, and the third biggest and clearly female.

Dear Jack Frost,

I can remember my mom doing this a lot when I was a little kid, and she told me that if I ever wanted to write one myself, I could send it to the North Pole and Santa Claus would pass it on.

Anyway... My name's Timothy Karson, though it used to be Tim Faire. My life got turned upside down a few years ago when my mom and I were in a car accident, and I got shipped up here to live with Father. It's... It's not so bad, some days, but there are also a lot of things pretty wrong up here.

The kids at my private school never write letters to Santa, just wish lists for their parents. The church I go to never holds Easter Egg hunts, or anyone else for that matter. Father never lets me put my teeth that fall out under my pillow, either - he says if I want to get pocket change, there are more "sanitary" ways of going about it. There's nothing fun about living here - I've never even been able to have a snowball fight with anyone. About the only times I know I'm still a kid are when I'm dreaming...

Though, my biggest dream turned into a nightmare last week. You see... My mom finally passed away. She'd been in a coma for almost four years, so it wasn't like she was ever going wake up anyway...

I got to go down to North Carolina and see my grandparents and cousins for a couple days, because Mom's will had me as sole be-ne-fic-iary, which I think means I got everything that used to belong to the two of us. Grandma and Grandpa are going to sell most of the furniture and basic stuff for me, and since I already had most of my personal stuff with me, the only thing I really brought back was a box of Mom's old art supplies and projects. I've got to keep it in my closet, so that Father doesn't see and try to make me get rid of the art pieces. See... Most of what Mom made were drawings and paintings of all sorts of magical creatures. There are fairies, yetis, elves like in Santa's shop, walking eggs, and so on.

My favorite couple of pictures, though, are each one of a kind. The first one is of a group, the most epic versions I've ever seen of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, Sandman, the Easter Bunny, and, well, you. The other painting though, she made with watercolor pencils as a kid, and while it isn't nearly as good as the stuff she made as a grown-up, it's still one of my favorite portraits.

... Um, coming back to the point of this letter. My Father told me when I first came here that I needed to grow up and stop believing in silly things like the people in Mom's pictures. But I'll be turning nine next week, and I really really really want something to mark it as special. The parties Father's thrown for me in the last few years have just been excuses for him to invite over business friends, and the kids who come never want to do anything fun.

So, if we could get a snow day or something, not one too serious, just enough to keep anyone from coming over, so I can get outside and enjoy myself a bit, that would be awesome.

Hopefully waiting,

Timmy Faire

"Timothy! Get in here!"

"Coming, Father." Dragging himself down the hallway and stifling a yawn, the new nine year old entered the living room. "What's... up?"

"Look at this mess!" Outside the sliding glass door that opened onto the patio, Tim gaped at the winter wonderland that had most definitely not been there the night before. "I've already gotten calls from two of my clients, saying they aren't going to try and get their sports cars through all of that. I'm afraid today's party's going to have to be canceled..."

"Oh, that's okay, Father! Can, um, can I go out and... Uh, and check to make sure there isn't ice on the powerlines or anything?"

Micheal Karson frowned at his son's hopeful expression. "Why would you want to-? Oh, nevermind. That's fine, just keep out of the groundskeeper's way."

"Yes, sir!" In record time, Tim had retreated to his room, gotten dressed in cold weather gear, and hurried out the back door. The first few minutes he spent just looking around and admiring the patterns the frost had made over the house. Then, out of sight of any windows, he flopped backwards into a large pile of the white stuff, moving his arms and legs to make a snow angel. The imprint got a little smushed as the boy got back to his feet, but he felt it was a good first attempt.

Then something small hit the back of his head, bursting upon impact. "Hey!"

"Don't you need to be wearing a hat or something, Timmy?" A familiar voice asked. Tim whipped around, only to freeze and stare slack-jawed at someone he hadn't seen in years.

"Jack Frost...?"

"Who else?" The white haired teen smirked, then pulled something out of his hoodie pocket. "Here."

Catching the item thrown to him, Tim realized it was a worn old beanie hat, with ragged pom-poms hanging from either side. "What's this?"

Jack walked over and crouched next to the confused kid. "This was a present to your mother on her ninth birthday, several years ago. Her cousin Amelia had been holding on to it, but when I got your family together in Cooleemee to give them your letter, she insisted I bring it to you."

Tim felt his eyes tearing up as he ran gloved fingers over the old wool. "You... They read my letter? Really?"

"Yep, and I got news for you, Timmy - your grandparents are going to try and file for custody of you. Might take a while, because of the different states issue, but if some lawyer types show up here and ask, think you can tell them you want to go home?"

"More than anything." A few seconds later, Tim turned and threw his arms around Jack's neck. "Thank you. Thank you so much!" Chuckling, the teen let him stay there for a minute, before moving away and scooping up a handful of snow.

"Now... I might not be an expert on Birthdays, but I'm pretty sure at least some fun has to be involved. Think you're up for a snowball fight, little man?"

"Oh, you are so asking for it!" They both laughed, and spent the next couple hours forgetting all that had gone wrong with Tim's life, and just focusing on enjoying themselves a bit. After all, what better way was there to drive back the darkness of misfortune?