Title: Guardian of Guardians

Summary: Gen. The story of Jamie and Jack twists on for far longer than anyone else expects. A series of meandering one-shots.

Disclaimer: Rise of the Guardians belongs to lots of other people, notably Dreamworks and William Joyce, not me!

A/N: Stick with me through the brief movie recap: more original content comes next chapter!

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Prelude

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Jamie hasn't done himself any favors by believing in mythological beings. At nine, open belief in things like Santa Claus, Bigfoot, or aliens can get your butt kicked, at least by the older kids. Adults have started giving him fond, exasperated looks when he talks about research done in Scotland in search of the Loch Ness Monster, like they're holding themselves back from saying something more. Even Claude and Caleb are beginning to tease him about his belief in aliens and the Easter Bunny. They're too old to believe in any old thing, they say. Too old.

And they're right. Or maybe they aren't—he doesn't know anymore. All he knows is that the Easter Bunny hasn't come at all this year, and that the lack of chocolate and candy put a damper on everyone's spirits. It probably didn't help that Ashton, the seventh-grader who lives down the street, almost died laughing at them as they trudged home from the park with empty wicker baskets.

It's all adding up, but Jamie isn't liking the answer. And so he finds himself huddled in bed just past time for lights out, cradling the old rabbit he's had since he was a baby. He hasn't really played with it in years, and it's usually just something he curls up with in the night as it watches over him with its beady black eyes. But tonight, he needs someone to talk to, and this is the best he's got.

Already, the fleeting and incredible memory of seeing his heroes all at once—Santa, the Tooth Fairy, Sandman, and the Easter Bunny—feels like nothing more than a dream, something imagined out of desperation, and it fades out at the end in a hazy cloud of golden dust. He remembers waking alone the next morning and wondering if he'd only imagined it all. His room seemed messier than usual, but Abby had been frolicking about and chewing his things, and he'd almost chalked it up to the hyperactive greyhound. Except…

He didn't actually mean to speak the words aloud, but somehow, when he places the bunny across from him on the bed, they come tumbling from his mouth."Okay, look. You and I are obviously at what they call a crossroads," he begins lowly, careful that his mother doesn't hear from where she sits working in the next room. "So, here's what's gonna happen. If it wasn't a dream, and if you are real, then you have to prove it. Like, right now." His face grows grim, his mouth clenching around the words, and he stares at the silent rabbit.

"I've believed in you for a long time, okay? Like, my whole life in fact. So you kind of owe me now. You don't have to do much. Just a little sign, so I know." He isn't sure when picked up the toy, but now he leans in closer. "Anything," he adds in a whisper, "anything at all."

If his hands had been clasped together, it might have been like he was praying, just like he did sometimes during the rare occasions when they visited Granddad and went to Sunday mass together. But Jamie hasn't grown up believing in anything as strongly as he's believed in this.

There is no telling how long he has been sitting in the dark on that bed, whispering to the rabbit and tense in the silence, his whole body taut in anxiety as he hopes for something. A glimmer of light, the warmth of springtime, a flower, or the slightest movement of anything at all.

But it's enough, and a sense of miserable betrayal washes over him. "I knew it," he says. Slowly, as if he can't believe what he's doing, he stretches out his arm and lets the toy tumble down to the wooden floor.

The small, cracking noises that come a few seconds later surprise him at first, and he peers at the window to see what's happened. As if by magic, feathery swirls of frost branch out on the glass of his half-opened window, shimmering white as they grow larger, and there's something in the middle that appears as if drawn by an invisible hand. An Easter egg.

Jamie gasps and peers down at the bunny on the floor, which hasn't moved from where he left it. Not that he expects it to, exactly, but if the Easter Bunny is really there…Jamie stands on the bed, his mouth widening as the frost crosses over the rail to the glass pane above. There, sure enough, appears a likeness of a rabbit, one smaller than the bunny Jamie had seen last night in his dream—which wasn't a dream, after all—but still a rabbit. "He's real."

And suddenly it is real. The rabbit springs from the glass, trailing little white crystals behind it, and Jamie can't keep the laughter inside as he leaps on his bed to catch the dancing animal. He can almost hear the sound of laughter echo, as though there's someone else there, and then the rabbit disappears in a firework of snow that flutters to the ground, bright white in the darkness of his room.

"Snow?" He wonders aloud. The tiniest flake brushes against his nose, and something about the familiar feeling of lightness and freedom and fun brings a memory to the forefront of his mind. But snow isn't for the Easter Bunny, is it? No, snow belongs to someone else, someone his mother once mentioned. "Jack Frost?" he whispers aloud, tasting the name. It sounds right. "Jack Frost?" he says, suddenly more certain and anxious to see.

He hears some faint sound, a voice behind him that he can only dimly make out, and turns slowly to see a boy standing there, the moonlight streaming from the window making him look unusually white. No, he realizes, it's the paleness of the boy's skin and the whiteness of his hair, which might have been lighter than the snow itself. Jamie's eyes flicker to take everything in: the boy is older than he is, and he wears only old brown pants and a blue hoodie marked by frost around the hood and shoulders. His feet are bare, and he carries in one hand a crooked staff that reminds Jamie of old stories of shepherds told to him by his Granddad. "Jack Frost."

The boy's mouth gapes open wide. "That's right!" he cries. "Jack Frost! That's my name!" This boy, Jack Frost, is as excited as Jamie is, and he approaches with a brilliant, tender smile. "You said my name!"

Jamie can hardly move, can hardly think at all. He isn't sure whether the hair on his arms are standing because of the cold or because of his own excitement. Jack's face grows serious as Jamie stares with wide eyes.

"Wait," he says, "can you hear me?" Jamie feels his head nodding as though someone else has moved it for him. "Can you see me?" Jamie nods again, and the white-haired boy lets out a burst of incredulous, surprised laughter, his eyes suspiciously teary. "He sees me! He—he sees me!"

In a movement that Jamie can hardly track with his own eyes, Jack Frost zips up through the air in a perfect backflip, landing on his writing desk.

Jamie is laughing too, now. "You just made it snow!" He cries happily, bouncing on his bed in a moment of uncontrolled excitement.

"I know!"

"In my room!"

"I know!"

"You're real?"

"Yeah, man!" Jack says, jumping off of the desk and gesturing wildly with his hands. "Who do you think brings you all the blizzards and the snow days? And you remember when you went flying on that sled the other day?"

How could Jamie possibly forget the coolest, most terrifying, most incredibly fun thing that had happened to him in ages? "That was you?" He cries excitedly.

"That was me!" Jack crows.

"Cool!" Jamie says, jumping up and down more vigorously. Jack agrees as Jamie remembered why he'd been sitting up in the dark room in the first place. "But—what about the Easter Bunny? And the Tooth fairy? Li—I mean, what about the—?" His word jumble in his enthusiasm, but Jack takes over.

"Real, real, real!" Jack Frost exclaims happily, picking up the fallen stuffed rabbit. "Every one of us is real."

"I knew it!" Jamie says with a triumphant, excited bounce.

"Jamie? Who are you talking to?" His mother has that slight warning tone in her voice, and Jamie winces slightly.

"Um…" Jack is grinning at him with an odd, mysterious look, and as he tilts his head toward the door, Jamie knows exactly what he wants. "Jack Frost?"

His mother chuckles. "O-kay…" Jamie can't keep a giggle from escaping, and his fellow conspirator lets out another joyful laugh.

A sudden crack makes them both jump as the windows slam open in a burst of wind, and Jack is suddenly at full attention, smile fading as he dashes to the window. Jamie follows, only to see something huge and dark jet out of the sky and crash onto the street below. In the dim light of the streetlights, it looks like some huge machine. Jack must know what it is, because he grabs his staff, sparing an instant for a quick grin and a "Hold on a sec?" before he flies—really flies—out of the window in a rush of cold air.

Jamie hesitates for only a moment before speeding out of his room in his bare feet, slowing only to creep down the hallway past the living room where his mother is working, and is out of the door like a shot, his heart constricted somewhere in his throat at the hope that it might all be real.

As his feet patter down the driveway, he freezes as he realizes what he's seeing. And then he's running faster than before, to where a huge man with a red coat and a long, silvery beard waits beside what can only be a green fairy with shimmering wings and feathery skin. "Wow, it is you! I mean, it is you!"

He turns to Jack, exuberant. "I knew it wasn't a dream!"

"Jack," the tall man breathes in wonder. "He sees you."

Jamie looks up at the white-haired spirit, who shoots him an affectionate grin and elbows him playfully. Something like pride washes over Jamie, until he hears Jack's next words. "Wait—where's Bunny?"

Santa exchanges a sad glance with the Tooth Fairy. "Losing Easter took its toll on all of us. Bunny, most of all."

Their gazes are drawn to the sleigh, where a tiny little grey rabbit with odd markings hops down. Jack's hero is less than a foot tall. And fluffy, to boot. "That's the Easter Bunny?" Jamie says with a laugh.

"Finally, someone sees me!" came a surprisingly deep voice in a thickly-accented Australian accent. "I mean, where were you about an hour ago, mate?"

"What happened to him?" asks Jamie, softly. "He used to be huge and cool, but now he's…cute," he says, reaching out to scratch the animal's head like he does sometimes with Abby. After a second, the rabbit brushes him off and begins to attack Jack adorably, but Jamie isn't having any of it.

"Actually, he told me you were real," Jamie says, kneeling beside the rabbit he had believed in for so long. "Just when I started to think that maybe you weren't," he adds apologetically, half-afraid the rabbit might be angry. But Jack came to him at a key moment, at a crossroads where Jamie might have turned down another path, and Jamie can't overlook what the spirit has done for him.

"He made you believe…in me?" The rabbit is staring at Jack with wide, uncertain eyes. Jack returns his gaze with a hesitant smile, and the moment is only broken by rising darkness and thunder in the sky.

Jack's glance returns to Jamie's, hardening. "Get Jamie out of here," he says, and Santa nods once, pulling Jamie back.

"Be careful, Jack," the man says, pushing a bewildered Jamie forward as Jack spurts off into the sky. A sudden fear cripples Jamie, and he turns his head back even as he is pushed into a run. Black clouds, lit only by flashes of lightning, loom in the sky behind them, and Jack Frost is racing toward them.

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What follows is a tale so convoluted, so fantastic, that anyone else could hardly believe it. Except that Jamie does, wholeheartedly: the frantic running, the growing sense of fear, the fun and amazement sledding with all of these incredible, mythical spirits in the darkness. And through all of it, Jack Frost is right in front of him, a hand stretched out defensively to protect Jamie from what he now knows is the Boogeyman, the same one that he tells Sophie not to worry about (and he discovers that if good spirits really do exist, then maybe it only makes sense for bad ones to exist as well).

It's only when Pitch Black—the Boogeyman's real name, Jamie discovers—asks the question that Jamie realizes what he can do, the one power he has that the spirits don't.

"And who will protect you?" the dark man snarls.

Jamie has spent his entire life believing in people and things that are said not to exist, has dedicated all of his time and effort to learning more about them. They have brought him gifts, left him trinkets, given him good dreams. And in this moment, there is only one thing he can do in return.

"I will," he says, more bravely than he feels. He can sense the heavy weight Jack's eyes on him. The others step up and chime in at his sides, and Jamie exchanges a look with Jack. The spirit looks troubled, worried for Jamie no doubt, but not afraid.

Pitch does not seem to like this at all. "Still think there's no such thing as the Boogeyman?" He asks. A dull shiver races down Jamie's spine, but he quashes it. There is nothing to be afraid of, not here. He is surrounded by the spirits who have been with him his whole life, who have protected him whether he knew it or not. Now that it is his turn to return the favor, he can't back down.

A dark black mass of writhing shadow floods toward them like a huge tidal wave of the sort he has only seen on TV. "I do believe in you," he says boldly. "I'm just not afraid of you." In this moment, it's true. He isn't sure what he expects, but he stretches out his hand as the darkness jets forward and feels everyone wince behind him. Insanely, the shadows burst into golden light that twists and glimmers like the thread of a spider's web, transforming into a gold dust—dream dust, Jamie realizes.

In the next hazy minutes, the spirits begin to regain their powers, attacking in full force. Jamie is frozen in wonder as minuscule elves, huge yetis, tiny fairies, and even giant Easter eggs attack, punctuated by flashes of boomerangs or bright swords. The monsters turn to gold dust as they brush against him, and in the next instant the fighting is somewhere else, and Jamie and his friends have to hurry to catch up.

The Sandman has made short work of Pitch by the time they arrive, and the other spirits greet him warmly, relief obvious. Tendrils of gold grow everywhere—horses for Cupcake, fairies and candies streaming from window to window, huge dinosaurs for Caleb, and flying dolphins and schools of fish.

Jamie isn't sure if he's remembering to breathe, because it's impossible to take this all in, but the cold thud of a snowball at his back startles him. He turns, finding the grinning figure of Jack Frost there, and he can't help but let out a whoop of laughter as he returns fire. Suddenly, impossibly, he is having a snowball fight alongside the spirits, holding his own against the yetis and small elves (who have the annoying habit of trying to stuff snow up the bottoms of his pants), and the darkness of earlier is only the faintest memory.

Eventually, Jamie realizes that they are mostly alone. There are deep voices echoing farther out in the woods, harsh shouts dying off.

"Guys? Guys, wait—I think there's something else going on!" He hurries off to the in the direction of the sounds, the thin layer of snow chilling his feet. His friends shout something and follow. They stop at the lake, and Jamie hesitates only for a moment—his mother has warned him about the ice down here, after all—before stepping forward to join Jack Frost and the others.

He comes in at the end of Santa's reading, but he hears enough. As though he senses the boy's presence on his ice, Jack turns around to meet Jamie's eyes, questioning. Jamie isn't sure why, but he can feel a huge smile stretching his mouth, and he nods determinedly. Jack seems to find whatever he is looking for, because he turns back to Santa. "I will," he says.

"Then congratulations, Jack Frost, for you are now, and forevermore, a Guardian."

Jamie starts the cheering off, though his noise is nearly drowned by the blare of the elves' trumpets, but he is fiercely happy, and doesn't think he could quiet down even if he had to. The sleigh that comes out of nowhere only makes him more excited, and Sophie grabs his arm as they hurry toward it. The Easter Bunny takes her aside after a moment, though, giving her lots of little walking eggs, and Jamie can tell a goodbye when he sees it. Sandman lets out a few fireworks, which explode into tiny glimmering flakes of sun that fall to the earth like snow, and Jamie turns around to come face to face with Jack once more.

"You're leaving?" he asks, and it comes out more accusing than he means for it to be. "But what if Pitch comes back? What we stop believing?" It is a worrying thought. He had seen all of them before in the night, but in broad daylight, it had been hard even for Jamie convince himself that the Tooth Fairy, Sandman, Santa Claus, and the Easter Bunny had all really been in his room. "If I can't see you…"

"Hey!" Jack-the-Guardian says with a laugh, his face now at eye level and a hand on Jamie's shoulder. "Slow down, slow down! You're telling me you stop believing in the moon when the sun comes up?"

"No," Jamie replies.

"Do you stop believing in the sun when clouds block it out?"

"No," Jamie laughs sheepishly, seeing where Jack is headed.

"We'll always be there, Jamie," Jack murmurs. "And now, we'll always be here," he taps one finger to Jamie's chest, over his heart, "which kinda makes you a Guardian too."

Jamie smiles a huge smile. A Guardian. Him? Something in his chest is with happiness—at least, before Jack stands, eyes never leaving Jamie's until he turns toward the sled. Jamie's heart plummets. More than he is worried about forgetting the Guardians, he is worried about losing…well, Jack is a friend now, isn't he?

"Jack," he cries impulsively, his legs moving of their own accord and slipping on the ice. As he slides, he catches Jack in a tight hug. The spirit stiffens for the barest of moments before hugging back. "I'll miss you," Jamie says softly, and Jack's grip tightens.

Without another word, Jack Frost clambers onto the sled. Santa jerks the reins, and the reindeer pull with a speed Jamie could only have imagined before. The Guardians hurtle off into the morning sunlight. Jamie watches them disappear, waving his arm wildly until it hurts and staring until they are out long of sight.

He only looks down when Sophie appears before him. The pile of eggs she holds is teetering, and Jamie instinctively grabs the ones at the top. "Hop, hop!" she says happily.

"I know!" Jamie agrees with a smile. "The Guardians…" Which kinda makes you a Guardian too, Jack had said. A Guardian. Him. It would be impossible to forget something like that, wouldn't it? And he has to believe, always, in case he's ever needed again…because as a Guardian of the Guardians, isn't that his duty?

They all fall asleep on the ice after eating some of the Easter eggs, and although the sugar and over-excitement are powerful stimulants, nothing can keep them awake after the exhausting all-night battle. The ice is cold at his back, but as Jamie dozes off with a half-eaten chocolate in his hand, all he can think is that he wouldn't change a thing.

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Jamie wakes late in the morning with a powerful certainty settled into his bones. In a burst of energy, he springs up in bed, bouncing up and down and peering out the frosty window. The cold air from last night has gone, and in its place is melted snow and, farther down the street, flower buds. The snow is fading for now, but it will return. And Jamie will be ready when it does.

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A/N: Hello, all! I'm new to the fandom, having just watched the movie for the first time about two weeks ago, and of course I fell in love! I wanted to explore Jamie and Jack's lives a little bit more…doesn't the movie just leave you wondering what happens next? Anyway, this chapter is a lot of stuff from the movie, I know, but it's important to see things from Jamie's point of view, right? Right? Anyway, updates for this will probably be sporadic, but the next chapter will definitely be original content, and soon, so stick around to see what comes next!

Thanks so much for reading! Please review?

-ket