I got this idea quite a few months ago and had started writing it, but then the inspiration just fizzled out and this thing laid around idle for quite some time until I could figure out where to go with it. I mean, it's not exactly an action packed story when the vast majority of this fic literally takes place over the phone! *laughs* Writing this was a nightmare, but I finally figured out what I wanted to say with it, so there you go. Just be forewarned, it IS long! Like, 10k words long. That's pretty typical for me, but some of you might not know that yet, so this is me warning you that even though it's only one chapter, this is really sort of a novella. I do that a lot, haha.

In any case, I hope you enjoy it!

Disclaimer: After several tries, I finally found the D key to spell the word "Disclaimer". Do I really have to do the rest after that? *sighs* I don't own ROTG. And yes, I seriously did have trouble finding the D key. I stayed up all night to type this story and kinda sorta maybe got so tired that I'm forgetting how to type.

It was just a telephone. There was nothing strange about that. It was just one of those boring old touch tone phones that plugged into the wall and did nothing besides let you talk to the person on the other end of the line. Susan Bennett had allowed herself and her son Jamie to each have their own mobile phones, and her daughter would soon be the recipient of one too, but she still felt a strange comfort from lifting the curved receiver off its cradle and pressing it to her ear.

Maybe it was a waste of money to continue to pay for this land line, as plenty of her friends and Jamie's friends had informed her by now. But she figured that any small comfort when it came time for her to be expected to make her weekly call to her mother was worth it. She pressed the phone to her ear, then took a deep breath as the dial tone droned in her head, centering herself as though preparing to go into a meditative trance. She was going to need it.

There was no point in further delay. She might as well get this over with, no matter how much she hated talking with her mother. Susan pounded out the familiar number as quickly as she knew how, then closed her eyes tightly as the phone began to ring, wishing desperately that she could somehow get salvation from this dreaded call.

The phone then picked up, and the speaker on the other end of the line began to talk, but Susan's eyebrows frowned as she listened to the voice. That was most certainly not her mother.

"Hello, you have reached the Guardians of Childhood's helpline. How can I help you today?"

She slapped a hand to her face and then shook her head in embarrassment. Of course she would have made a mistake like that, what with her dialing her mother's number so fast. "I'm sorry," she said, "I've got the wrong number."

It sounded like the person on the other end of the line was about to protest, but she had already placed her fingers on the hang up lever and the person's words were cut off. She'd dialed wrong plenty of times before, but that had been a rather strange thing to call by accident. Oh well. She dialed out her mother's number again and waited as the phone rang.

The phone picked up. "Welcome back," said the voice on the other end. Once again, it wasn't her mother's voice. It was clearly that same guy who had answered last time when she'd misdialed. Her eyes narrowed. This was getting weird.

"I must have misdialed again," she said. "I'm terribly sorry."

"You didn't misdial," said the other person. "It's impossible to misdial here. You called us because you really need us right now."

"What I need is to get that talk with my mom over and done with!" And with that, she hung up again and once again dialed her mother's number.

After only one ring this time, the person on the other end picked up. They began with a sigh, and then said, "How many times are you going to call before you talk about what's bothering you?"

Panic rose in Susan's chest at hearing the same voice for the third time in a row, and while she tried to maintain composure, she couldn't deny that she had raised her voice in response to this latest question. "Why do I keep calling you? I'm just trying to get a hold of my mother!"

The other person sighed. "That might be the very problem."

That was definitely not the response Susan had been expecting, prompting a response of, "What?"

"This helpline is magically endowed with the ability to seek out anyone who needs us. That way, if anyone in the world needs to contact us for some reason, all they have to do is pick up a phone, dial any number, and the spell will connect them to it. My guess would be that your attempts to contact your mother might be triggering the spell."

"That's ridiculous!" She took a couple deep breaths to calm herself down enough to think of something else to say, but all that came to her was, "Stop messing with my phone line!" She then slammed the phone down on its cradle, hoping that the force she had put into that was enough to drive the point home to that strange person on the other end of the line.

Susan then reached into her pocket and fished out her mobile phone. If that strange guy was going to tap into her land line, then she was just going to have to fool him and resort to another line altogether. Once again she punched in her mother's number, pressed Send, then waited as it started to ring.

The phone picked up, and a slightly amused chuckle was the first thing to meet her ears. "Calling from a different phone now, are we?"

It took nearly all her strength of will not to throw the phone across the room. Breaking her phone wouldn't get the guy to leave her alone, though she wasn't quite sure how to do that. "What do you want from me?!" Her voice cracked, and she then pushed herself to her feet and began to pace. "Why won't you leave me alone?"

The voice on the other end of the line took on a very solemn tone. "We're not demanding anything of you, dear. You're the one calling us. Clearly you don't quite understand how the magic works, but you're still the one triggering it, and you won't stop reaching us instead of your mother until you talk about what's bothering you."

Susan growled and hit end on her phone, then plopped herself back into the chair by the land line phone. She stared at the accursed phone for a couple minutes before pulling her knees up to her chest, which resulted in her pulling her feet onto the chair. She'd always told Jamie to keep his shoes off the furniture, but now she was ignoring her own advice and couldn't help it. Before she realized it, a tear leaked out her eye. She brushed it away only for another to take its place. Then another followed that one, and yet another after that.

There was no point in denying it. She was crying. With that knowledge, she allowed herself to hunch over and let all the tears out. This situation was terrifying! Perhaps she was just overreacting to something that would resolve itself on its own. Or perhaps she had just misdialed all those times since she really didn't want to call her mother anyway. It made sense enough that she could have made the same mistake four times if she was in a rush to get it over with, didn't it?

After a few minutes, she managed to dry her tears. Of course she was overreacting. That was all she ever did. That was what she had been told all her life, anyway. She needed to just buck up and deal with the situation head on. So, after taking a deep breath for courage, she picked up the receiver to her land line phone and started dialing again, making absolutely sure to hit every number correctly.

The phone rang, and Susan's heart began to pound in her chest. Regardless of who answered, she wasn't sure she wanted to speak to either of them. But she was terrified of missing this weekly talk with her mother, so she had to try.

After a couple rings, the phone picked up again, and the same voice said, "That took a few minutes. I was starting to worry about you. Are you okay?"

Tears leaked unbidden out of Susan's eyes, and it took all her effort to not let the tears into her voice. "Why would you even care? You don't know me from Adam."

The person on the other end simply chuckled. "Well, I think I can hazard a pretty good guess that your name's not Adam."

She did have to admit that that comeback managed to almost make her chuckle. Her emotions were still too strong to allow any laughter to actually happen, but the guy on the other end of the line at least seemed friendly if nothing else.

After a moment, he responded again. "I told you in the first call that we're the Guardians of Childhood. We protect the children of the world from the things that wish to tear them down or destroy who they really are. If you called us today, then you must have some part of yourself that feels threatened and you need help."

Susan simply shook her head. "But I'm not a child. There's clearly some mistake."

The other person laughed awkwardly. "Yeah, I thought you sounded like an adult. To have you call us is unusual, though I wouldn't say it's unheard of. Some part of your inner child must be screaming out for protection considering how strongly the spell has taken effect for you."

"But there's nothing wrong!" she said. "There's been a mistake."

"Ha. There are no mistakes with this. Ever. The Guardians' helpline is discrete and can't possibly be called by mistake. Let alone five times by mistake." There was some definite mirth in the guy's tone as he explained all of this, like he was just waiting for her to accept it and get on with it. But Susan didn't know how she could. A magic helpline? That sounded too ridiculous to even dignify with a response.

Yet here she was, unable to call for anyone but these people. Heck, she even kept getting the same operator over and over again, which seemed kind of strange. Even when she'd switched phones, she'd still reached him. This was either a really elaborate prank, some sort of creepy stalker thing, or... dare she allow herself to consider the third option?

She cleared her throat, her voice now only capable of speaking barely over a whisper. "What do... what do you want me to talk about?"

The voice on the other end of the line took on a decidedly gentler tone than before. "Anything you want, dear."

She almost growled again, but managed to avoid making herself out to be so animalistic this time despite the urge to. "But wasn't there something I needed to talk about to make me stop having to call you?"

The other person sighed, then said, "Only you know what that is. But if I had to hazard a guess, I would say that it probably has something to do with your mother."

That was it, she was getting a headache. She just knew it. Her hand flew up to cover the offending area of her forehead as it started pounding. Even mentioning her mother was enough to cause her a fright, but actually talking about her? There was no way. She shook her head. "I don't want to talk about her. Especially not with someone I don't even know."

The other person only seemed bemused by this statement, and not at all put off by it. "You're welcome to talk about anything you feel safe or comfortable talking about. We're not in the business of forcing help on people who don't want it. But if it helps any, you can call me Jack."

Susan blinked. As much as she wanted to deny it, having a name to put with the voice strangely did help. Without even thinking, she said, "I'm Susan."

"Nice to meet you, Susan. I'm Jack."

Susan could swear the guy was sitting on the other end of the line biting his lip to keep from laughing at himself. She could hear muffled snorts as it was. So this guy was a joker. She rolled her eyes. "Are you just going to keep trying to go in circles with introductions?"

"Not if you give me something else to go in circles with."

"What?" She blinked as she tried to process that, only to have the mysterious Jack crack up at her reaction. She huffed. "Are you deliberately trying to run me around in circles?"

"No," he said, "I'm deliberately trying to loosen you up. You seem a bit stiff, though I suppose that's fairly normal for your age. If I were there in person I would throw a snowball in your face."

She snorted at the silly comment. "Good luck finding snow in the middle of summer."

"Hey, I would totally try!" Jack was really starting to giggle at himself now. "If nothing else, I could always raid a random snow cone cart. There's always a source of snow somewhere when you need it."

Susan buried her face in her free hand, trying to hide the hint of a smile that was starting to form on her face. This guy was such an idiot, but she couldn't help but be amused by him somehow. "I'm not sure the person minding the cart would be very pleased with you for stealing his snow."

Jack laughed at this, but didn't seem the least bit deterred by her comment. "Well, I suppose I could just be a good boy for once and order my own snow cone... and then I could throw that at you."

Susan balked, somehow taken aback at his remark despite the fact that she felt she should have seen it coming all along. "That would stain my clothes!"

"Yep," he said, "and they would be so much more interesting afterward, wouldn't they? You'd finally look different than everyone else in town."

She rolled her eyes. "And look like I have very poor hygiene."

"Bah!" He dismissed her concern and then laughed again. "People would just look at your shirt and think, 'Wow, Susan really knows how to have fun. I wish I knew how to have fun like that.' and then you could go and teach them."

"More like teach them that I had a snowball throwing lunatic come after me."

"Hey, that's great!" Jack started up his laughter again. "I think I'll get that made into a t-shirt. 'Snowball Throwing Lunatic'. I wonder if I could sell those?"

Susan emitted a longsuffering sigh and couldn't help but wonder how Jack's coworkers managed to deal with him on a daily basis if he was this high strung. "Do you even know what an insult is, Jack?"

"Insult? What insult?" Another laugh from the strange boy. "All I'm hearing are compliments."

She slapped her face once again in utter bafflement at this guy. Who in the world acted like this? "What is wrong with you?"

"Well, I don't know," he said, "but I could always go and steal Santa's naughty and nice list and read off everything that's written under my name. Mind you, it's bound to be a very long entry."

Her eyebrows went up a little at this strange comment, but it made sense enough when she thought about it. Jack was used to talking with kids. Of course he would randomly bring up Santa in conversation. Well, she could play along. "I take it you've been very naughty."

"Hey, can't a guy have a little fun?"

Susan couldn't help it. She started to chuckle. Something about this guy was getting to her. "You sound like a bad influence."

"Psh! Only when the parents are control freaks, in which case they really need to lighten up. You only get to be a kid once in your life."

"Or in your case, for the entirety of your life."

To this, Jack started laughing so hard that he was unable to speak for several minutes. While inwardly Susan cheered at having finally gotten the best of him, she bit her lip to avoid giving in and laughing too. Heaven forbid if she broke her cover and let him know he was getting to her.

After a couple minutes, he finally regained control of himself, though the laughter was still evident in every word he spoke. "Do you have kids? Because I think you would make an awesome mother."

Susan's gaze dropped to the floor, her own laughter suddenly gone from her eyes. "Well, yeah, but..." Her voice trailed off as she didn't know what to say. Was she overreacting again? Probably. She was pretty sure that had been meant as a compliment, but all it did was remind her of her own mother, and that was a topic she had been relieved to get away from for a time.

A couple minutes passed with Jack trying to comprehend her sudden change in demeanor before something finally seemed to click in his head. "Wait, you called us today instead of your own mother... Are you afraid of becoming like her?"

Her grip tightened around the phone receiver, turning her knuckles white. How does one respond to a question like that? Without any warning, a slight hiccup escaped from her and she coughed in an attempt to cover it up.

"I hit the nail right on the head, didn't I?" said Jack. Susan continued to bite her lip, still unsure of what to say, and she whimpered.

Jack sighed and was silent for a moment as the two processed the thoughts and emotions flitting through the air between them. Then he spoke up again. "Well, in my experience, the parents who are most concerned about that generally make better decisions about their kids than their parents did. But might I ask what exactly is making you so scared about this right now?"

Susan rubbed at her brow for a moment before responding. "I just got into a bit of a fight with my son."

"That's a fairly common situation," said Jack. "I wouldn't say that necessarily makes you a bad mother."

She clamped her eyes shut as though she could shut out the pain of reality by doing so. "I told him that if he refused to do his homework, he was going to be worthless for anything but flipping burgers when he grew up."

"Ah," said Jack, an understanding tone filling his voice. "I've been hearing a lot of kids complain about that threat lately. It seems the economy isn't so good right now in a lot of countries."

"Yeah," said Susan as her voice dropped into a melancholy pool. "My mom used to threaten me with that constantly. I guess I forgot how much it hurt until I made Jamie cry today."

Jack's response wasn't what she expected to hear. "Wait, your son's name is Jamie?"

Susan raised an eyebrow at the sound of his tone. "Yeah. Why?"

The strange guy then coughed as though to recover his dignity and then said, "Oh, nothing. I just know a kid named Jamie is all. But it's probably not the same kid."

As ridiculous as it might be for Susan to get bothered by this, she still found herself gripping the receiver tighter than perhaps was necessary. This Jack guy wasn't likely talking about her Jamie, though something about her was still conflicted over the mention. Was she just being protective over her son? Or was she feeling an even more bizarre emotion still and half wishing the guy actually was talking about her son? That seemed so ridiculous that it wasn't even worth giving any attention to, but she couldn't seem to shake it. Maybe she just hoped for someone who could explain her son to her. Or who could say from personal observation whether she was indeed a good mother.

She sniffled. "Well, this line is spooky enough as it is. Supposing it were the same Jamie by some miracle, would you still think I wasn't a bad mother after knowing what sorts of things he goes through?"

An ominous pause from the other end caused Susan to shake for a moment. She was so stupid. What was she expecting to come from this when he wasn't even talking about the same Jamie?

"I would think," said Jack, "that a good mother has the sense to question herself every so often and ask for help when she needs it. And you're doing just that."

As she started to let out her breath in relief, her breathing hitched as she remembered that he wasn't truly talking about her. She didn't really know why some stranger's opinion mattered so much, anyway. There was just something about him that she couldn't define, and she wanted his approval for some reason. Way more than she wanted her mother's.

Taking advantage of the lull in conversation, Sophie then ran into the room in pursuit of a large rubber ball that was seeking to wreak havoc on all of Susan's vases atop the piano. Susan immediately jumped into action, barely pulling a vase out of the way of the rampaging ball. "Sophie! You play with your ball outside! Not inside!"

The little girl pouted, then retrieved her ball and reluctantly did as she was told. Susan sighed and placed the blessedly unharmed vase back on top of the piano. The top of the piano was supposed to be her one safe spot for breakable things, but even the piano couldn't protect her things from "Mr. Bally Ball" as Sophie called it.

Remembering that she was still on the phone, she put it back to her ear and said, "Hello? Sorry, my daughter just came rampaging through here with her favorite ball."

Another awkward silence followed, and Susan wasn't sure what to make of that. Had she scared Jack away somehow, or bored him to death by leaving him alone so long? Or maybe he'd gone onto another line to help someone who was currently talking to him. That made sense, though it was a shame since she was finally starting to warm up to him.

The silence finally broke. "Your daughter is named Sophie?"

The disbelief in Jack's voice caused Susan to raise an eyebrow in response. Why would it be so strange to have a daughter with that name? "Yeah, why?"

"Wow." Another awkward pause. Then, "What are the chances?"

The curiosity was too much. Susan couldn't hold back her questions anymore. "The chances of what?"

Jack coughed on the other end of the line, then took a deep breath. "I'll probably freak you out with this question, but..." Another deep breath. "...do you live in Burgess?"

She dropped the phone. She couldn't help it. When he'd said she would freak out at the question, he wasn't kidding. How had he known where she lived? Granted, he obviously had access to her phone number since he'd mentioned that a while back, but so did a lot of people. How did he know her family, and how did he know where she lived? Who was this guy, anyway?

It took a couple heartbeats for her to remember how to move, but then she fished up her phone and pressed it to her ear once again. "I'll take that as a yes," said Jack. Susan could only sit in silence, her jaw dropping open.

"I'm sorry to have scared you," said Jack after realizing that he obviously wasn't getting anything more out of Susan before he explained himself. "I probably sound like some creepy stalker, don't I?" He followed with an awkward laugh, which Susan didn't respond to. She only hoped that he would explain himself. And soon, before she completely freaked out.

"I make my home base in Burgess every winter," said Jack. "I go elsewhere for the rest of the year, but I always look forward to going home to Burgess every year. The local kids and I get into some of the most epic snowball fights."

Her death grip on the receiver started to loosen, but something about his story still unnerved her a bit. It was all well and good if he knew her family because he passed through Burgess regularly, and even if he played with the kids around town sometimes since he seemed like a big kid himself, but it seemed peculiar that she had never spotted anyone his age playing with her kids. "So," she said, "have we ever met?"

Jack paused again, which unnerved Susan a bit, but she clung to the phone in the hopes that something he would say would end up dispelling her fears, though it was seeming more and more unlikely by this point. Still, she couldn't deny that there was something about him. Something really important.

"Actually, yes. A long time ago, back in Philadelphia."

She nearly dropped the phone again, but managed to keep control of herself this time. The chances of him just being able to guess that she had lived in Philadelphia a long time ago were minimal. He must have met her at some point, though it seemed so odd that she couldn't remember a person by the name of "Jack" from back then. She was sure she would have noticed such a person moving to Burgess too, but she didn't recognise this Jack at all. Well, maybe she didn't, or maybe she did. There was still that something about him that she was trying to identify.

"How did we know each other back then?" she said.

"We used to play with each other day after school," he said. "At least, during the cooler months. I can't stick around for long when it starts getting hot out."

Susan scanned her mind for any kid that she used to play with after school on a regular basis, whether it was hot out or not, but her mind came up blank. Was he just making this up? Something in his tone sounded like he was completely serious. "I don't remember playing with anyone named Jack," she said. She didn't bother telling him that she didn't really remember playing with anyone more than once or twice, but she didn't want to sound that pitiful. If he had truly known her as a child, he would already know just how much of a misfit she had been.

Jack only laughed. "No, of course you don't!" He took the liberty of laughing again before continuing. "You never actually called me by name before now. You just made up a name and decided that was good enough. It was really cute."

She'd made up a name for him? Susan blinked as she thought on this. It was true that she had the tendency to name everyone and everything when she was a kid. It was one of the few forms of control that she had had. Thankfully not too many people had gotten upset by her weird nicknames. It had mostly only been her classmates who had objected to it. If Jack had thought it was cute, then he must have been from the older generation, though that was surprising considering how young he sounded.

"I'm sorry," she said as she shook her head. "I just can't seem to remember anyone I used to play with a lot." She bit her lip as she realized that she had just admitted to her lame and lonely childhood. Great. Well, if he had actually played with her as often as he said, then he was probably already fully aware of this fact.

"I know," he said. "You were such a lonely girl, Susan. Your father wasn't well and your mother was... well, let's just say she was unpleasant. I just thought you could use a friend."

That struck Susan speechless. Hardly anyone knew about her dad's sickness. She refused to talk about it to most people. Did this Jack know that he had died too? Considering how well he seemed to know her, he probably did. But why couldn't she remember him? Maybe she was just getting hung up on the name. She was much better with faces anyway.

"Sorry, I guess I've blotted out a lot of the memories of my childhood. Maybe if you described your appearance, that might trigger something."

But all that triggered was an odd snicker from Jack. Susan raised an eyebrow at this. Did he look funny at the time or something? She couldn't see any other reason for him to have such a weird response to that question. "I could describe myself," he said, "but I'm not sure how much good it would do. You never once saw my face."

That got Susan's attention, and she sat up straight, now fully alert. "How could I have never seen your face if we used to play together?"

"Heh," said Jack, now sounding a bit sheepish. "You won't believe the answer."

The way he had said that struck a nerve inside her in such a way so that the hairs on the back of her neck were starting to stand up. Why she was suddenly starting to get spooked, she couldn't say, but now she was entirely too curious for her own good. "Even if I don't, I still want to know."

"Alright, but don't say I didn't warn you." With that, he took a deep breath, and then promptly released it before immediately belting out, "I'm normally invisible, okay?" His voice caught in his throat upon saying this, something that baffled Susan, since that was not how she would expect someone to react if they were just trying to screw with her. "Like you, I've been so lonely for most of my life. I just wandered through the streets, trying to get anyone to notice me, but no one ever did. But occasionally I would find a child like you who would acknowledge that I was there, and so I would feel a little less lonely for a time. You never once saw my face or heard my voice, but you still knew." He choked up once again, then said. "It meant the world to me."

Susan's mind raced a mile a minute, trying to come up with a more rational explanation than what Jack had just described, but she came up with nothing. As much as she wanted to dismiss what he'd said as nonsense, she really couldn't. It had felt like someone had been watching out for her when she was a little girl. But that couldn't possibly have been Jack. That had just been her wild imagination. Her mom had insisted over and over again that there was nothing to her imaginary friend and that Susan needed to just grow up and forget about him already.

Her heart skipped a beat in shock as she registered that thought. Her mother had told her that her imaginary friend wasn't real. It hadn't been Susan's conclusion at all. It had all been her mother's decision. Susan wasn't sure if she had ever made a decision on the situation for herself. She had been afraid to. And now she was equally scared of questioning Jack on it.

Why was she so afraid? Was she afraid that he would prove that he wasn't who he said he was? Or was she more afraid that he would? Either way, she was clearly being ridiculous for even entertaining this possibility. No, that was her mother's voice in her head again. She needed to actually think about this for herself for once in her life, but doing so objectively was going to be very hard.

"Susan?" Jack's voice sounded worried. Susan sighed. She supposed she needed to answer him, whether she liked it or not.

She gripped the receiver tightly, as though drawing strength from it. "Why... Why can I hear your voice now if I couldn't then?"

"That's part of the magic of the phone line," he said. "It won't allow anyone to be denied the help they need for a stupid reason like that. If you need to talk to me, the magic will ensure that you do."

"Oh," said Susan, who then promptly wished she could kick herself for not coming up with a more intelligent response than that.

"Susan," he said after another moment of awkward silence, "I know you're worried about turning out like that mother of yours. I don't blame you a bit for being scared of that." It seemed he was trying to bring the conversation back to the original topic since they had veered so far off track. "And while I realize that I can be a terrible influence about some things, I think I can honestly say that I was a good enough influence in your young years so that you chose not to turn out like her. Jamie tells me all sorts of things about his home life, and very little of what he says are complaints about you. Except perhaps with how frustrated he is that you can't see me like he can."

She didn't know what to say. She didn't even know whether to believe Jack's assertion that he was literally invisible. All she managed to summon up the courage to say was, "I'm sorry."

"I've never held it against you," he said. "You didn't know what to look for, and I had no way of telling you. You often knew what I was trying to tell you, but I could never tell you anything that specific. No one was at fault for that."

Why she was still going along with this crazy story, she had no idea. But now that she was in this far, she wouldn't be able to pull herself out now even if she wanted to. She licked her lips. "Why are you invisible?"

"Heh." Jack chuckled awkwardly. "I've never entirely known the answer to that myself. But since I've joined the Guardians, they've been trying to help me understand it. Something about it being an illusion to protect me while I do my work."

Something pinged in Susan's head right then. A tidbit she had heard in one of the many fairy stories she had read growing up. "You mean, like a glamour?"

"Yes!" said Jack, suddenly getting an excited tone in his voice. "That was the word the Guardians used. You know about it?"

"Well," said Susan as she blinked in thought, "that's what fairies use to disguise themselves, isn't it? But why would you be wearing a glamour?"

A chuckle escaped Jack's lips. "I am technically a fairy, Susan."

"Whoa!" She nearly dropped the phone again. Why was she so clumsy today? Granted, this was an awfully strange conversation she was having, and it kept throwing her off every time it took yet another strange turn. She would still prefer to have this conversation any day over talking with her mother though, which probably said a lot about her mother if she was willing to let an invisible fairy stalker guy repeatedly freak her out than speak with her own flesh and blood.

"Are you serious?!" she said.

"Absolutely. You should record this for posterity, since it's one of the few times you'll ever catch me being serious."

Well, even if he had been acting serious, he certainly wasn't acting so serious now. His sarcastic tone that he'd had at the beginning of the conversation had come right back from wherever it had been hiding. And Susan was surprised to realize that she had actually missed it. Something about that obnoxious tone of his that knew how to laugh in the face of all things unpleasant felt awfully familiar. If his words were to be trusted, then she probably had honestly heard that snarky tone quite often while growing up. She was still a little afraid to just give in and believe his weird assertion, but something about his admitting that he was a fairy had calmed her down a bit. She had never been sure whether she had believed in fairies or not, but she had also never denied the possibility. And thinking of him as a fairy was a lot less creepy than thinking of him as just some strange invisible stalker man.

As she pondered that, her mind wandered in an attempt to connect all the puzzle pieces that Jack had given her. A lonely fairy who hung out with her in the winter months, who she had never learned the name of until now, who she had never seen or heard but still knew was there...

Suddenly Susan shrieked, leaving Jack to frantically ask her whether she was okay. When she didn't respond the first time, he asked again. He sounded like he was about to ask a third time when Susan finally blurted out, "Do you have ice powers, Jack?"

This question was apparently so unexpected that it took a moment for Jack to answer, though once he did, he simply said, "Yes."

Susan choked on her next words, but forced them out anyway. "Were you the one I always called Snow Mizer?"

Jack responded to this by chuckling again. At first Susan was worried that he was mocking her until she actually stopped to listen to the tone of his laugh. It sounded relieved.

"I was worried you'd forgotten," he said. "I didn't want to say the name you'd given me back then unless you brought it up yourself since I didn't want to freak you out even more." Another chuckle. "I was really scared you'd forgotten it though."

Susan didn't know what to think. This guy on the other end of the line... her old imaginary friend? Was that even possible? Before she could stop herself, she blurted out, "What was my stuffed animal's name?"

"Testing me now, are we?" But Jack didn't sound upset by it. He sounded mirthful. Maybe he was just relieved that Susan was willing to consider accepting the truth of his words, even if it was a bizarre truth to accept. "Well, your stuffed dog was named Bernie because your mom hadn't been paying attention one day when you'd left him a little too close to the stove, and his paw burned. So you decided to make it into a pun instead of crying about it."

What was with this tone she heard in Jack's words? Was this... pride? For her being creative enough to come up with a pun? Granted, he had been right about everything thus far.

"Okay," she said, "but do you remember the first boy I ever kissed?"

"Nope," said Jack. "but your first kiss wasn't with a boy anyway. You and a friend were playing Sleeping Beauty and you played the prince who had to kiss her to wake her up."

Susan coughed awkwardly. Jack hadn't fallen for her trick question, which meant he really wasn't making this stuff up. Even Jamie didn't know that she had kissed a girl when she was young. She and the other girl had never told another soul about it, but apparently Jack knew the truth anyway. Which he would have if he really was her Snow Mizer.

All of a sudden, her reaction shifted again and she found herself suddenly sobbing. Why would she cry about this sort of thing? It didn't make any sense. She really was such a baby about some things.

"It's okay, Susan," said Jack in the midst of her sobs, only for him to gulp himself. He laughed self consciously, then said, "I've never actually had the chance to reconnect with a grown child before."

Was it her imagination, or was Jack's voice starting to crack? He wasn't getting emotional too, was he? If he was crying too, then they were both a lost cause. There was no hope for them. They were bound to just become a blubbering mess if there was no one around to stop them.

After a few moments of trying and failing to talk, she finally managed to make herself say, "Do you really think I'm a good mother?"

"You're a great mother, Susan!" said Jack. "I know you make mistakes. Every mother does. I do too. Heaven knows the other Guardians are always on my case about some lapse of judgment of mine." He offered a weak laugh, which Susan joined with her own in a strange gesture of support. "But you're seriously doing your best, and you know when to ask for help, which is better than most by far. And I adore your kids, so you've got to be doing something right."

At this, the floodgates finally opened and Susan just let out a torrent of tears that had been pent up for way too long. Her mother had always been impossible to please, especially once she had had her own kids. Susan had been desperate for the approval of a person who was never going to give it, no matter what she did. Yet here was a different person she had always looked up to, even if she hadn't realized it. And he offered his approval readily. She didn't know how to take it. She only knew how to cry, and cry she did.

As she did, all those years of rejection, all those years of being screamed at, all those years of being alone were slowly stripped away. She began to feel empty, and somehow being empty was the best feeling in the world. She'd forgotten what it was like to not be full of darkness and shadows. She knew she wouldn't be able to stay like this forever, of course. One always fills themselves up with something else, but she didn't have to put the same shadows back into her soul. There had to be something better to put inside her. Could she fill herself up with that silly laugh that Jack kept doing? She would much rather have Jack's laugh show up at random moments than all those shadows that her mother had given her.

Her tears finally out, she struggled to catch her breath. She hadn't had quite enough tears to banish every shadow from her being, but when had she ever had that many tears? What was important was that she had managed to finally cry so many of them out, and she was now ready to allow a little light in. That seemed an improvement enough for the time being.

She closed her eyes, sniffling one last time. "Thank you."

She waited for the expected "You're welcome," but Jack's response wasn't the one she expected. "I should actually be thanking you."

Susan's eyes popped open as she looked toward the phone. "Whatever for?"

He sighed, then groaned as he dallied with his explanation, seemingly gathering the words before uttering a response to such an emotional subject. "I just... well, I've never been certain whether any of the children I befriended still remembered me once they grew up. Nearly all my friends have been children. And... well, I understand that they have to grow up. I accept that. But I never forget any child who has ever been my friend." At this point, his voice cracked and Susan could definitely tell that he was crying. "I just never knew whether they had forgotten me."

"Oh, Jack!" Susan held the receiver a little closer to her face as though that would somehow help him to feel her arms cradling around him and soothing him. She certainly wished she could do so at the moment, but he clearly wasn't anywhere nearby. She had no idea just how far away he was, but if he was avoiding Burgess for the heat, then he had to have run off either to the far north or all the way to the other side of the world where it was actually winter presently. Either way, this phone call was most likely reaching quite a long distance. She hoped that magical phone calls didn't charge too much on her phone bill, but she was sure it would be worth it, no matter the price.

"I could never forget you, Jack," she said. "Even though it took me some nudging to realize who you were, I still never forgot about all my wonderful days with Snow Mizer. I still look forward to seeing the town blanketed in snow for that reason."

He sniffed. "Really? You're not angry at how inconvenient the snow is?"

Susan rolled her eyes. "Okay, sometimes, yes. But seriously, if the only way to get to work is to drive through the snow, then wouldn't you get a little annoyed at it sometimes?"

"Touche."

"Though honestly, I still get chills whenever I think about our little town getting a snow day. And it's not because of the snow itself. I just... I guess I just feel like I have a friend watching over me whenever the town is blanketed in snow. Even when that friend is sometimes annoying and makes me late for work."

Jack started laughing by this point, his earlier hint at tears mostly gone. "Well, I can't just be nice all the time, can I? I would ruin my reputation as a big, evil meanie."

"Uh huh." Susan snickered. "Says the guy who trips over his own snow."

Jack then groaned for a long moment before saying, "Out of all the things you had to remember, you had to remember that?"

"How could I forget it? What's funnier than the Snow Mizer tripping over his own snow? And you didn't do it just once, but twice!"

Susan heard a longsuffering sigh from the other end of the line. "Well, okay, but I'd advise you to watch yourself or someone is going to mysteriously find out about the jellybean pants incident."

"You wouldn't dare!"

Jack only chuckled an evil chuckle in response, and then said, "Oh, wouldn't I? Do you even know me, Susan?"

"Unfortunately, yes." She then sighed an exaggerated sigh. "Just my luck to be cursed with a crazy fairy for a friend who remembers every embarrassing moment."

"Best kind of fairy there is, I'd think."

Despite how she tried, she couldn't help but start laughing at that, which only prompted Jack to join in with her as they both laughed over who knew what. It didn't seem like it had been all that funny of a joke, but they were sure laughing like it was. Susan suspected that it must have been a different kind of laugh altogether, like a laugh of relief. Both of them had gotten something heavy off their chests from this interaction. She really had needed to reach this magical line. She would never deny it now.

"Well, thank you, Jack. I can't believe I'm admitting this, but you were absolutely right. I did need to make this call to you instead of my mom."

"See what I said?" said Jack. "There are no accidents with this phone line. Ever."

Susan laughed. "I think I might believe you now." She paused. There was one more thing that troubled her, and she wasn't sure she'd like the answer. "What if I want to talk to you again? Can I reach you then?"

"Hmmm..." Jack paused as he considered the question for himself for a moment. She understood it was a tricky question, but she hoped it wasn't too tricky. The both of them clearly wanted to reestablish contact with each other. "Well, I will be there come winter again, so you might be able to talk with me the way you used to if you don't dismiss yourself as crazy."

"Heh," said Susan. "I suppose that's true. But..." She sighed. Dare she ask it? She had come this far, so why not go all the way? "I've really liked finally hearing your voice. And I would love to finally see your face, a-and even give you a hug if you'd let me. Is there a way to do that?"

Another laugh from Jack, but once again, this one sounded different from all his others. If there was a language of laughter, then Jack must be fluent in it. Susan had never realized just how many different kinds of laughs there were before talking with Jack in this way. This particular laugh made it sound like he was touched that she even wanted to interact with him in that way. It revealed how he felt about the situation way better than any words he could say.

"My invisibility, my glamour, is controlled by belief. If you want to see through it, you have to believe you can. Jamie and Sophie have no doubt that they can see me, and so they do. There's no reason you can't do the same."

"Hmmm," said Susan as she pondered over his words. "Is it the sort of glamour where one can see through it if they look out of the corner of their eye at you?"

Jack laughed again, a laugh that seemed to communicate that he hadn't expected such a response. "Honestly, I have no idea. Feel free to try it out and let me know if it works."

"Alright," she said, "I will. On the condition that you try hard to get my attention at least once this coming winter."

Yet another laugh from Jack. An eager one. "Deal."

They laughed together and then said their goodbyes, and then Susan hung up, happy and sad at the same time. She was so happy to have finally had her inner child validated after all this time, but sad that she wasn't sure whether she would succeed at talking to her precious childhood friend ever again. She sighed. She was just going to have to wait for winter and hope.

The phone rang, and Susan looked at the caller ID and promptly rolled her eyes. Of course. Her mother had decided that Susan was taking too long to call her on the appointed day and had decided to call her and give her a lecture about being an ungrateful daughter. She didn't need this right now. Her mother didn't own her, and she could afford to wait until Susan was ready and willing to talk to her, so she turned off the ringer and sat back with a sigh. She knew her mother was going to call over and over again and leave message after message on her voicemail, but that was a problem for another day when she could handle the negativity. For now, she was going to let Jack's bad influence help her make some better decisions, which seemed contradictory, but somehow made sense even so. Jack was very good at teaching a person to follow their heart. He always had been. She was glad that he was now in Jamie's and Sophie's life. She couldn't wish for a better friend for them.

The months passed, the summer leaves turned gold and orange, then fell off the tree and turned brown beneath the first frosts. The pumpkins grew nice and fat, and the apples got crushed into cider. Then, one night as she made her way home from work, she picked up the crisp scent of nearby snow, and she smiled. Jack would undoubtedly be passing through soon. She felt like a child inside, and for once, that was okay.

The next morning woke her to blazing white walls, and she leapt out of bed. She let out a whoop as she saw the snow coming down. Without changing out of her nightgown, she threw on her coat and boots and ran out the front door.

Susan had to admit that she didn't entirely know what to look for since she didn't even know what Jack looked like, but she was sure that she knew how the smirk in his voice would look on his face regardless. If she saw anyone with that annoying little smirk, she knew she would have him.

A snowball came out of nowhere and smacked her right on the neck, and she spun around to see who had thrown the offending weapon. No one was in sight. Not even her kids. There weren't even footprints in the snow yet aside from her own. "Hmmm..." She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then opened her eyes again and began looking around more carefully out the corners of her eyes. Jack had to have been around, and he wanted to be noticed as was proved by the snowball. It was just a matter of getting past her own brain.

Some sort of movement above her made her blink and glance up to the roof. Nothing there. She sighed. She needed to resist the urge to look directly out the front of her eyes. Glamours were tricky. She pulled her eyes away from the roof and continued to look out of the corners of her eyes.

A movement caught her attention again, and despite how much she wanted to, she resisted the urge to look directly at it, just trying to focus as best she could on the movement out of her peripheral vision. It wasn't easy, but she couldn't deny that she definitely saw something up on her roof.

"Are you up there, Jack?"

The movement suddenly jumped from the roof and gracefully landed a few feet from her on the ground. She continued to stare straight forward and not look at it, despite her desperation to do so. The movement took a step closer to her. It was clearly a person. She could tell that much by now, but she couldn't tell much else.

"I can see you standing there, but I can't make anything out. Maybe if you get closer?"

The figure then took a few steps toward her, and she involuntarily shivered. What if this wasn't Jack, but she was still letting them get so close to her without her making any attempt to defend herself? Was that likely?

Apparently, the figure had managed to get closer to her than she had thought while she was busy worrying, because she suddenly felt a cold hand on her shoulder and a gentle voice say, "Susan, relax, it's just me."

She suddenly let out the breath that she hadn't realized she'd been holding. She knew that voice. How could she not after having spent so much time talking to the guy on that phone call during the summer? She tried to speak, but her voice only wobbled as she said one word. "...Jack?"

"I'm here, Susan. It's okay." The cold hand left her shoulder and then she felt two cold hands wrap around her and pull her close. "Just close your eyes and focus on one sense at a time. It's harder for adults than it is for kids."

"But I want to see you."

"I know you do," he said as he stroked her hair, a gesture that she felt sure he had done many times before when she had been young. "But be patient with yourself as your eyes catch up with the rest of you. You could feel me before, and I guess that the phone call unlocked my voice for you, but you'll just need to be patient until you know how to see me as well."

She sighed and conceded, but she was still sad that she hadn't been able to see him as quickly as she'd hoped aside from brief encounters out of the corners of her eyes. Jamie, however, was elated at the news. His mother could hear Jack, which meant that she could finally join in the fun. She was still no good at targeting Jack with snowballs since she had no idea where he was most of the time until his laughter gave him away, but the fun he brought to their little family made her visual inconvenience worth it all the same.

It wasn't until some years later when Susan found herself going through some of Jamie's old things from when he was a child that she found one of his old scrap books. Smiling, she flipped it open to see what sort of research her silly little boy had been doing at this point in his life.

The first page had a photograph captioned as "Jack's frost patterns", and a couple printouts of winter weather readings that he had no doubt looked up on some weather site. She smiled. It seemed Jamie had taken it upon himself to do some research on Jack at some point. What had he found out while he'd been so busy researching? Her curiosity once again got the best of her, and she began to flip through the scrapbook, enjoying all of Jamie's little doodles and his scribbles that explained the doodles. He had been so cute back then.

Her attention suddenly got drawn to a printout of an old painting featuring a boy in his young adult years, close to Jamie's age now. Jamie's scribbled handwriting next to it read, "Jackson Overland". Next to it was a picture that had Jamie on the right side of the photo, laughing and looking annoyed as though something on the left side was shoving him in a playful manner. She knew Jack was in that photo and that Jamie and Sophie could both see him clearly, but she had never been able to see him in any photo as of yet.

That was when she noticed the scribbles next to that photo, which read, "After he became Jack Frost."

"Holy shit!" Susan dropped the scrap book as her mind reeled over this. She had heard her son referring to Jack Frost of course. Countless times. But never had the name been connected directly to the Jack she knew. Perhaps Jamie had thought it was obvious to her by now, but it clearly hadn't been. And then to see that name paired up next to a very human face? Needless to say, it gave her brain quite the shock as the final piece clicked into place.

She picked up the scrap book again and began to read Jamie's entries where he included clippings he'd found of the legend of the boy who had drowned in Overland Lake only to continue haunting the place for some reason, all the way to an interview Jamie had written down where he had asked Jack in detail how he had become Jack Frost. Susan couldn't help it as a few tears sprung unbidden to her eyes. Jack had been human. She'd had no idea. He'd never told her, and she'd never thought to ask. But he had been human and had run out of time way too young in that life, and so had been given a second chance at life as a fairy. It was no wonder he was so lonely. Suddenly being thrust in that world wouldn't teach a person how to talk to fairies. He probably made quite the nuisance of himself without even trying to.

She looked back at the picture Jamie had placed opposite of the painting, and Susan suddenly realized that she actually saw something taking up the left side of the photo. It wasn't clear. It was something blue and brown, but she couldn't distinguish more than that. As she continued to stare at it, the brown shapes eventually separated into legs, the blue mass formed a couple arms that were wrestling with Jamie, and a face appeared atop all of it. A face with a certain grin that she had told herself would be unmistakable if she ever caught sight of it.

Her hand flew to her face as she took all this in, and a few more tears leaked out and threatened the existence of the photo before she wiped them off on her sleeve. Now that she was finally seeing Jack in a photo, there was no way she was about to ruin the photo just like that, no matter how emotional it made her.

"Looking at something interesting?"

Before she could turn around to identify the speaker, a cold hand clapped down onto her shoulder. "Jack?" She gulped. "I didn't expect you around here today."

"Yeah, well, I had a little time to kill, so I thought I'd check on you guys. Jamie said you were too busy organizing stuff to come outside today, so he let me in, and-wait, is that the day I dunked Jamie in the snow drift?"

Susan had no idea of the answer to that, but she held the book up to where Jack could see it better. She had a habit by now of not looking directly at Jack since she saw him best out of the corner of her eye, but while he looked at the image, her curiosity once again got the best of her and she turned and looked at him directly for the first time in a couple years.

Right in front of her stood a boy with white hair and a distinctive smirk that she would know anywhere. Her eyes widened as she silently gasped, not wanting to break this moment should he vanish forever once she looked away.

After a moment, Jack seemed to notice that Susan was looking a little strange, so he looked up from the scrap book and said, "What's the matter?"

Susan blinked for a couple moments before answering with, "...Why did your hair and eyes change color after you became Jack Frost?"

The look on Jack's face was priceless as he first stared at her deadpan while trying to figure out what she was getting at, then his eyes widened as the meaning sunk in, then the crazed look of a kid in a candy shop as he finally realized that Susan must be able to see him if she asked him such a question.

"Wait... you-you see me? Like actually see me? Not just the seeing me out the the corners of your eyes thing? Like really, really see me?"

Susan chuckled. "Really, really, Jack." Jack bounced on his heels in delight at this proclamation, a gesture which only made her laugh all the harder. "Something about Jamie's old research just finally made it click for me."

Jack then grabbed the scrapbook, kissed it, then said, "Thank you, Jamie!" He then grasped Susan's hand and began to run toward the front door. "I bet you'll be a force to be reckoned with now that I can't hide from you anymore. Let's see what you're made of!"

"Seriously, Jack?" Susan said between laughing and trying to frantically grab her coat and boots while Jack hustled her out the door. "Always a snowball fight?"

A twinkle of mischief flickered in Jack's eyes. "Always."

Realizing she was beaten in trying to resist the attempts of the snow spirit to drag her into a wintery game, she threw herself into it and just gave in to the fun. She finally understood. Jack had always been there for her. He had always been there for her kids. And he would always be there for her family from generation to generation. He had always accepted her for who she was, expecting nothing of her except to accept him in return. Well, she could certainly do that much for him.

Jack Frost was now forever a part of her heart.

Always.

So yes, there was the story which I hope you liked. If you didn't, we'll blame it on the fact that I was quite tired while writing this and I haven't taken the time to reread it yet to make sure it makes sense. (Ran spellcheck on it at least, so yay for not being entirely lazy!) Once I actually get some sleep, I'll find out if this makes sense or not. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed it! Feel free to let me know what you think. I like hearing from my readers! :)

Anyway, until next time, thank you for reading, and take care!