Two days later, Quilo finally got to see Nisha again. She was sporting two necklaces. One was the soul-stone, which had been drilled through and had a silver chain put through it. But Quilo had already known this. He had stiffened at the strange sensations of someone probably touching the stone. But when the drill had first brushed against the stone, he had been laid low. He curled up on his bed, covering his face with a pillow to muffle his cries. His entire body had been filled with so much pain that he had blacked out from it.

At some point, Riley barged into his room, waking him. His body had still been feeling as weak as a newborn babe and he had felt so nauseous as to throw up all over his bed. Riley silently, calmly did her best to help him, taking care of him. She also quietly informed him that Nisha had stopped by, trying to break down the door. The little girl was hysterical with tears, apologizing over and over. Eventually her father had to drag her away, trying to calm her down as best as he could. But his face had been pale at how deeply Nisha had been crying.

Quilo sighed, falling back against the pillows even more. He hadn't expected the jeweler to drill a hole through the soul-stone. Obviously Nisha hadn't as well.

But now it was two days later and she wore another necklace as well, besides the soul-stone. The second necklace was shaped like a snowflake. The very center was a brilliant side-ways square cut aquamarine stone, brighter than the other necklace, encased inside a silver flower-like shape. Two small diamonds each made up the petals of the flower. In between each flower petal were the longer, snowflake part of the necklace. At the end of each, all six, was an oval aquamarine, the same color as the larger one in the middle. It too was on a silver chain.

As soon as she spotted him, her eyes filled with tears and she came at him with a running leap. Quilo fell back to the ground, her on top of him, unable to hold up her weight with how she had come at him. His arms tightened around her as she sobbed against his neck. "I'm so sorry, Quilo!" she repeated over and over. "I'm so sorry!"

Hands shaking, face filling with a blush, he patted her back, trying to hold himself back. All he wanted to do was kiss her and let her know that he forgave her. But he couldn't. He didn't know who was watching and he couldn't risk doing anything stranger-looking than the situation probably already looked.

Even so...

Leaning his head close to hers, he whispered in her ear. "Nisha, it's okay. I forgive you. You didn't mean for it to happen. So please...s-stop crying, hjarta mítt." He paused, blinking. He didn't know where the endearment had come, had never heard it before in his life. But somehow he knew it meant 'my heart' and it felt perfectly right saying it to Nisha. Shaking his head slightly to clear it, he continued. As he did, he felt himself start to grow...fainter, before that weird shifting sensation came over him.

"Please," Jack whispered brokenly. "You don't understand what you do to me when you are like this." He lifted a hand to run through her hair, breathing in her scent as he offered comfort. "I've returned," he pulled back, looking startled.

Nisha watched him silently, with wide eyes.

Jack stared down at her for several seconds. "It appears my emotions are mixing and melting into the emotions of the boy. And, not surprisingly, I am stronger than he. Besides, intentionally or not, you did choose me. As such...the magic is slowly saying that I must remain active and he dormant. He cannot die off completely. He was the original soul, after all." He glanced down again, seeing her confused, worried expression. "Nisha, I ask that you learn very quickly to love me as well. I fear that your...boy friend will not be present for much longer. But I am a gentleman. I shall return him to you now. Until we meet again, hjarta mítt," he whispered.

His body changed as Quilo shifted back into the active state. He took in Nisha's expression and instantly understood. "I was Jack again, wasn't I?" Nisha nodded and he sighed heavily. "What did he say?"

She bit her lip, looking confused and torn. "J-Jack said...he said that you would...go away soon. I think. I'm not sure. He confuses me, Quilo."

Pain lashed through him at her words. "So...the stories are true," he murmured. "It's all true. The price I have to pay to gain magic is to disappear as a part of myself."

Nisha whimpered. "I don't...no. I don't like this, Quilo. You're scaring me again...Why do you have to disappear?"

He stared down at her beloved face, sensing deep in his soul that this might be the last time he saw it, as himself. "Remember the story, Nisha? Remember how I said that Jack's spirit and soul was too powerful to ever die? Well, once he's been awakened, do you really think he would just got back to sleep?"

She shook her head a little uncertainly. "N-no...but I'll ask him to. Maybe if I ask nice, he'll stop."

Quilo let out a sad breath. "No, he won't. Not after he's found out what awaits him if he stays. Not after he's already begun to fall in love with you. I can...I can feel him. I can hear him...sort of. He won't ever let you escape. He's found his one last chance for a happily-ever-after in you and he won't let anything come between that and him. He thinks that if...If he can live a life where he is finally happy, he'll be able to move on. He'll finally be able to rest forever at the end of this life. So...he won't ever let you go, Nisha."

She blinked, not understanding. Quilo sighed, his sigh echoed by Jack internally, as the two grew much closer to becoming one. "Don't worry about it for now, alright?" he muttered. "I can't fight this, though I desperately want to...So, I suppose this is the last time I'll ever be able to see you..."

Nisha shook her head, looking like she'd cry again. "No, no."

"Where's your dad today?" he asked in an attempt to change the subject.

It worked. "He's spending the day with Nana. She dropped me off here at your house. Daddy said he had something important to discuss with Nana. Something to do with his work."

Quilo frowned. "With his study of mythical creatures and myths?" He quickly shook his head again. It didn't matter. He had to cherish each second he had left. He wasn't sure when he would be completely overcome by Jack's presence, but he knew it would be soon. "Nisha, let's go play."

She nodded happily, clapping her hands in excitement. "Yes, play!"

He forced himself to forget every thing else. He wasn't Quilo Frost, wasn't Jack Frost either. He was simply a young boy spending a precious day with the young girl that he loved dearly.

The next four hours passed. He was blissfully happy. Without the worries of his two selves...As just a simple boy, he could bask in all the love he felt for Nisha without anything holding him back. And that is what he did.

Until...

Beller appeared at his elbow, while he had been counting for hide-and-seek. "Young Master," he said in a soft voice. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but your presence has been summoned to the Other realm immediately."

His stomach dropped as Quilo Frost was suddenly forced to bubble to the surface. His expression darkened and then grew numb as he nodded. "Alright. Thank you, Beller. You are dismissed." The hellhound bowed deeply before disappearing. He sucked in a deep breath before turning on his heel to face the entrance to the woods they had been using for their game. "Nisha!" he called out in a much louder voice. "Nisha, you have to come out, right now!"

Slowly, her face disgruntled and unhappy, she climbed down from a tree. "You can't cheat like that, Quilo," she complained unhappily.

He took in her face, trying to memorize every detail. "Nisha," he began, his voice breaking slightly. "R-remember when I said I would have to leave soon?"

Her expression instantly fell, twisting into sorrow. "No, please, don't go, Quilo," she begged. Dropping from the tree, she ran to his side, hugging him tight. "Don't leave me..."

He hugged her briefly before forcing himself to take four large steps back. Her arms were still out in an embrace he couldn't stay in. "I have to go." He pleaded with her to understand. It was very nearly killing him right this second to leave her side. He felt as much of a wreck as he had when the soul-stone had been harmed to be turned into a necklace for Nisha to wear.

He kept backing up, kept retreating. Nisha stood stock-still, watching him with tear-filled grey eyes. "Please," she sobbed. "Quilo...Jack...don't leave me alone."

He sucked in a soul-wrenching breath, his eyes flashing and frost starting to form at his feet. "You call my name just as I must leave you, hjarta mítt. Fear not, though, love, for I shall return. I know not when or how, but return I shall. Nothing in this world, nothing in the other world, can keep me from returning to your side. You own all that I am, forever and until the end of time. Now, please...release me."

Nisha watched him silently, her tears spilling over to her cheeks. Jack watched her silently as well, his whole body shaking with the effort to hold himself back. He knew if he touched her one more time he'd be lost, unable to leave ever again. "Please, Nisha," he begged again. "Release me that I may do what needs to be done."

Slowly, her body shaking with her own small sobs, she nodded her head. "G-go."

At her words, he felt some of the pressure in his soul lessen. He nodded before turning on his heel and running to the place he knew Beller would be waiting. Mid-step, Jack returned to Quilo, who dared not look back, lest he stop. But even so, he could still hear her small sobs behind him, no matter how fast he ran. They echoed in his very soul, as if the soul-stone absorbed the sound and brought it to him just as loud as if Nisha was right beside him. He sucked in another pain-filled breath and closed his eyes.

"I will return," he told her again, though he knew she had no way to hear him. "I promise, hjarta mítt, my love, my life...Nisha."

* * *

On his way to the WinterPalace, Jack was stopped. He felt...something pulling him back, calling out to him with a ferocity that left him breathless. Helpless against the strength of that call, he turned back. Whenever he tried to keep going farther from the entrance to the Human world that let out in that mountain town, pain lashed throughout his entire being. But there was no pain as long as he traveled in the direction to return to the Human world. He was worried for what could be happening and how his parents would react to him ignoring their summons, but he could do nothing else.

Nisha was calling for him with a strength that let him know something was very wrong.

It took him nearly three hours to reach the mountain, stumbling out near the peak. The town itself was another two hours down the side of the mountain. Letting out a tired breath, he started forward. But a very tiny whimper made him freeze. Slowly, recognizing that voice, his head turned to the voice.

Nisha was lying, with torn cloths, looking thin and barely alive, five feet on the ground from where he stood. Her head slowly lifted at the tiny noise he made when his breath came out in a low whoosh of shock. Her grey eyes looked nearly dead, flat, and watery. Her eyes were red and puffy, with deep, dark circles.

Slowly, uncertain of anything, Jack called out her name. "N-Nisha? Hjarta mítt?"

She weakly tried to rise to her feet, her arms and legs shaking from disuse and malnutrition. "Q-Quilo...J-Jack...P-papa..." She sobbed, stumbling into his open arms as he stepped forward to catch her.

"Y-yes?" he asked breathlessly, terrified to find out what had caused this awful change in her.

"P-Papa kept burning...the house fell...He wouldn't stop sleeping...The...the big people said he went to heaven. T-they said heaven...was at the top, over the mountain. S-s-so I tried to climb it...I want to go to where Papa is, Jack...Please, take me there. I want to see Papa." She explained in broken, halting tones, her voice cracking.

Cold filled his entire being. Nisha let out a low hiss as the soul-stone, still around her neck, began to freeze. It glowed, matching the glow of his eyes as he was filled with so many emotions in quick succession that he had no name for them. His powers kept rising, kept gathering more and more force.

Nisha cried out in fear, but even then, he couldn't be stopped.

"You wish to die?" he shouted in a mixture of anger and heart-break. "You wish to leave me behind, hjarta mítt?"

A shaking hand lifted the chain of the soul-stone. She moved it off of her skin, though she didn't remove it from around her neck. Even so, it filled him with anger. Jack knew, in the rational part of his mind, why she did it. But it felt, in that moment, as if she was rejecting part of him. His emotions ruled him, with nothing to hold them back.

As they did, a blizzard quickly began to form, in the middle of summer. Nisha cried out again and the force of the wind pushed her away. Jack paled even more, trying to find a way to calm down. But he was much too angry, too scared, too hurt, and too worried to calm down.

He didn't know what to do. Even before, long ago, when he had first gained his powers. He had not felt like this since he had killed the girl he loved and threw the world into Winter the first time. His heart and soul were ripping apart at the simple thought that this little girl wanted him to help her die. She wanted him to help her go to her father's side. And that killed him, destroyed him, slaughtered him.

* * *

Everywhere was white. Everywhere was nothing. Everywhere was silent.

I must be in the sky, the five-year-old child thought. I must be where the big people say Papa is. "Papa, where are you?" she called. "Papa! Papa..."

"Are you lost?" a young voice whispered, breaking the fragile silence that had surrounded her.

"Lost? What is that?"

"Something that cannot be found," the voice explained.

"Then does that mean Papa is lost? No matter how much Nisha looks, she can never find Papa."

"Yes, your Papa is lost and you will never be able to find him. But that doesn't mean you need to be lost as well. Go back, girl, go back."

"Where? How? Why? Nisha came to see...find Papa. Nisha doesn't want to be alone anymore."

"...and you refuse to leave until you gain your wish?"

"Yes! Nisha won't leave until she sees Papa!"

"Then..."

The little girl felt cold lips brush over her cheek. Shivering, she didn't dare move. The presence tied to the voice seemed to fade away, into the wind. The little girl shivered even more. The cold was quickly worsening. She tried to open her eyes but they were frozen shut from the wind. Crying out in fear and pain, she finally opened her eyes to find...

Jack, she remembered slowly. Those bright blue eyes belonged to Jack.

He watched her with cold eyes, the irises a glowing icy-blue, like the color of the soul-stone. The pupils were white and slit, like a cat's. His face was different as well. A very faint white tattoo had formed along the left, right, and top part of his face. It looked like cold frost slowly creeping over his skin. When her gaze traveled lower, over his deathly pale skin, she saw that it covered most of his arms and legs as well. More white lines peeked out from under his shirt. His hair, which was normally a very short brown or blonde was now nearly to the middle of his back and completely white.

"Jack," she called out softly. "Jack, please, help."

His voice, when he spoke, was as cold as the very air around her, making her shiver just as easily. "Nisha, hjarta mítt, I shall give you what you ask for...partly. Your father shall be brought back to life, but you may never see him again. In fact, you may never remember that he lives. Not one person he has ever known in his life will remember him and he will not remember them. His life shall be returned, but he will have to start from scratch, at the point in life he ended. Nathan Caldwell was much too young to have passed anyway."

Nisha stared at him, crying silently, her tears quickly freezing to her cheeks in the cold. "I...I c-can never s-see Pa...Papa again?" she stuttered, shivering.

His head nodded slowly. "Never."

"B-but...Papa will liv-ve?" Another nod. She shivered harder, before nodding herself. "O-okay...I w-won't ever see Papa...I-I'll f-forg-get."

His lips pulled back slightly into a sharp-toothed smile. His fingers snapped, his wrist twisting in a small swirl. As it did, the wind picked up, lifting around his arm. Then it shot off, into the sky, and he nodded. "Excellent. Now that that wish has been taken cared of..." He smiled again, though this was somehow a little softer, even with his sharp, scary-looking teeth. "Hjarta mítt, we shall play a game. One that you must agree to, if you wish to live. I do not wish for you to die, but I am much too...wild to control myself very well right now. In return for bringing Nathan Caldwell back to life, you owe me a game."

Nisha shivered even more, feeling her body grow colder and colder as the blizzard whipped all around her. "W-what g-game?"

"You must accept that I, Jack Frost, will marry you. I, Jack Frost, will be the one who will take over the life Quilo Frost was meant to lead. I will take his place, take up his promise, and marry you. I will live out the remainder of this human life-span with you, loving you, being with you. And in the end, I will finally be granted the peaceful rest denied me for all this time. I will finally be allowed to not be reborn in the body of a descent of mine. I will gain my happy-ever-after."

She stared at him, arms wrapping around herself in an attempt to become warmer. The blizzard kept growing and growing in power. She didn't understand how she could see Jack, but they stood inside a small bubble of calm inside the center of the blizzard. "I...can't s-s-say no?"

He shook his head, smiling darkly. "Not if you want to live. But I will make the game interesting. You will forget everything that happened in your childhood, since meeting Quilo and I. You will forget what happened to your father and in fact almost everything about your father. I like a challenge. I wish to prove to myself that I can make you love me, even with me seeming the perfect stranger to you. But don't worry. I will make myself forget as well. I will forget making you forget. As far as I will be aware, you should remember everything." He chuckled. "I'm sure it will make it even harder for me, make me hurt with your denial and rejection. But I will look at as the price I must pay for the things I am putting you through right now."

He cleared his throat, his expression growing cold and serious once more. "Now, choose. Death or the game?"

She shook her head, shuddering, her body beginning to fall forward. "G-game..." she breathed out in the cold.

His arms came around her and she felt the cold being pushed away even more. His lips brushed along her temple. "Then, hjarta mítt, forget. Forget all the things that fill your heart with sorrow. Know only that you will no longer be alone, ever, for the rest of your life. I brought your father back only to force him away. For that I am sorry. But I will take his place. I will take care of you for the rest of your life, providing for you, protecting you from the rest of the world, as much as I am able. And when the twelve years have passed, I will come for you, and bring you to my home. Until then, Nisha, sleep and heal. Sleep, forget, and leave a space in your heart for me to fill..."

* * *

Nisha stumbled, bleary-eyed down the mountain path. Her body felt deathly weak, barely holding on to what life she had. She couldn't remember why she was up on the mountain. All she could remember was cold, snow, fear, and blue.

She stumbled again, falling to the ground this time. She wasn't sure how far she had walked now. She just knew something in her said she had to keep going. She had to keep living. Keep moving forward.

Voices from far away called out to her, but she was so tired now. All she wanted to do was rest. Her eyes slowly closed. Her hand curled around a blue stone that hung from her neck. She couldn't remember where she had gotten it.

From someone important, her mind whispered tiredly.

Who was important?

Papa...

* * *

Jack watched his parents uncertainly. Quentin's blue eyes stared at him in shock. "S-son...what happened to you?"

He glanced down to the floor. And so it begins, he thought. The lies will not cease until I bring Nisha here. "My powers suddenly exploded, Dad," he explained in an amazed and shocked voice. "I don't...I don't know what happened. But suddenly..."

Glacia's eyes were wide. "You summoned a blizzard so strong that it took out three-fourths of the mountain connected to the Human world Gate. In the middle of summer there, no less! I've never seen a Frost so powerful."

Unable to hold it back anymore, Jack grinned. "Well, Mother, I am Jack Frost. Are you really so surprised that I would be so powerful?"

Both of his parents gasped in shock and he cursed himself for letting it slip so soon.

Glacia stared at him hard. "Is that...is that how your appearance has changed so drastically? You are the Jack Frost?"

He shrugged nonchalantly. No point hiding it now. "Yep," he chuckled. "Reborn inside your son, Quilo. Who, by the way, is no more. I sort of...ate him, I suppose you could say? As such, I'm your new son now. But I won't accept any name besides mine. So, Quilo is no longer an option. When you address me, I expect to be called Jack."

Quentin watched him for several minutes. "So...Jack...you plan to stay?" At his son's nod, he bit his lip. "You're powers are too great to ignore. Though it pains me to do so, I cannot allow Jacob to be the Heir to the Lord of Winter if your abilities exist. It is very strange and uncommon to do so, but you will inherit the WinterPalace after me then."

Jack grinned in a way very like a predator. "Oh, really? And that means that all the choices I make for my life will be final? You will have no ability to disagree once I inherit?"

Slowly, uncertain what his son who acted much older than he was use to meant, Quentin nodded. "Yes..."

Letting out a long laugh, Jack grinned widely. "I accept your wise decision to make me Heir wholeheartedly, Father. And thank you, by the way. You've just made my life so much easier..."

Glacia eyed him cautiously. "W-what do you mean, Q...I mean, Jack?"

Rubbing his hands together in anticipation, he chuckled. "You'll find out in twelve years time, Mother. Long after you've forgotten all about this little conversation. I have a very dear friend I'll be bringing home with me, and you'll have no choice but to welcome them with open arms!" He winked, turning on his heel and dancing back to his room. "Oh, how I can't wait!"