A/N: This is a rather short oneshot, sorry!

The morning arose like any other he had witnessed. The sun shone brightly, the birds chirped happily, and the thunderclouds had gone by during the night, after it had rained heavily.

The Master of Lightning stretched in the bed but refused to wake up and leave the soft, warm space between the sheets.

Turning to the side, he expected to sling his arm around a familiar waist, but instead his arm flopped onto the bed.

"What the—" Jay opened his eyes and noticed that his girlfriend was, in fact, not in her spot on the bed. "Nya? You in the bathroom?"

He turned on his back to look at the bathroom door, but it was wide open. Although Nya would usually keep the bathroom door unlocked when she would occupy it, she would always close it. Always.

So she was not in there.

Turning back around, Jay sighed as he mentally prepared himself for leaving his small cocoon. He groggily got out of bed, went to the empty bathroom, did everything he needed to do in there, and then walked back out. Then he put on his gi before walking out of the bedroom.

His destination was the kitchen, where he saw Lloyd and Cole preparing breakfast and Zane telling them how to handle the food. Jay sniffed the air and detected the smell of lentil soup and mashed potatoes with eggs.

"Double breakfast? Yeah-yuh!" Jay sat down in his seat and poured himself a glass of orange juice.

"Lloyd wanted the mashed potatoes and I wanted the soup," Cole explained, grabbing a ladle and beginning to pour everyone some soup into their bowls. Then he placed the bowls on the table.

Jay's nostrils danced happily, the scent of the soup immediately lightening his mood. He waited until Zane, Cole, and Lloyd sat at the table before digging in.

"Where's Nya?" He looked around. "And Kai?"

"They're at their parents'. Something happened or something," Lloyd explained poorly, with food in his mouth. "They didn't say what it was before they left."

"Okay." Jay raised his eyebrows, a bit in disbelief that Nya had left the monastery without telling him beforehand. "Well, did they say when they'd be back?"

Lloyd shook his head.

The conversation shortly stopped before Zane chimed in, "We need to continue working on the blueprint of the new bike, Jay."

The Blue Ninja nodded and quickly finished the bite in his mouth, swallowing it down with his juice. "Yeah, sure. Nya's responsible for the engine and brakes, though, and that's the thing we have to look at right now."

"She could just look over the plans you'll have made, no?" Lloyd suggested, right before stuffing his mouth with his spoon.

"I guess..."

After breakfast, Jay and Zane walked to the base and started their quest to figure out how to better their already-good work.

A while passed by, but the longer he worked, the more exhausted Jay became. His head felt heavy and pounded against his skull. "Zane..."

Zane stopped working to look at his teammate. "Are you okay, my friend? You seem pale."

"I don't...feel very...okay."

Zane gasped when Jay collapsed to the floor, hitting his head against the edge of the workbench. The nindroid knelt down to offer him help, but the nasty gash on Jay's head kept bleeding uncontrollably, and the look of Jay lying on the floor and bleeding out tainted the vision of the nindroid...

A/N: This is a rather short oneshot, sorry!

The morning arose like any other he had witnessed. The sun shone brightly, the birds chirped happily, and the thunderclouds had gone by during the night, after it had rained heavily.

The Master of Lightning stretched in the bed but refused to wake up and leave the soft, warm space between the sheets.

Turning to the side, he expected to sling his arm around a familiar waist, but instead his arm flopped onto the bed.

"What the—" Jay opened his eyes and noticed that his girlfriend was, in fact, not in her spot on the bed. "Nya? You in the bathroom?"

He turned on his back to look at the bathroom door, but it was wide open. Although Nya would usually keep the bathroom door unlocked when she would occupy it, she would always close it. Always.

So she was not in there.

Turning back around, Jay sighed as he mentally prepared himself for leaving his small cocoon. He groggily got out of bed, went to the empty bathroom, did everything he needed to do in there, and then walked back out. Then he put on his gi before walking out of the bedroom.

His destination was the kitchen, where he saw Lloyd and Cole preparing breakfast and Zane telling them how to handle the food. Jay sniffed the air and detected the smell of lentil soup and mashed potatoes with eggs.

"Double breakfast? Yeah-yuh!" Jay sat down in his seat and poured himself a glass of orange juice.

"Lloyd wanted the mashed potatoes and I wanted the soup," Cole explained, grabbing a ladle and beginning to pour everyone some soup into their bowls. Then he placed the bowls on the table.

Jay's nostrils danced happily, the scent of the soup immediately lightening his mood. He waited until Zane, Cole, and Lloyd sat at the table before digging in.

"Where's Nya?" He looked around. "And Kai?"

"They're at their parents'. Something happened or something," Lloyd explained poorly, with food in his mouth. "They didn't say what it was before they left."

"Okay." Jay raised his eyebrows, a bit in disbelief that Nya had left the monastery without telling him beforehand. "Well, did they say when they'd be back?"

Lloyd shook his head.

The conversation shortly stopped before Zane chimed in, "We need to continue working on the blueprint of the new bike, Jay."

The Blue Ninja nodded and quickly finished the bite in his mouth, swallowing it down with his juice. "Yeah, sure. Nya's responsible for the engine and breaks, though, and that's the thing we have to look at right now."

"She could just look over the plans you'll have made, no?" Lloyd suggested, right before stuffing his mouth with his spoon.

"I guess..."

After breakfast, Jay and Zane walked to the base and started their quest to figure out how to better their already-good work.

A while passed by, but the longer he worked, the more exhausted Jay became. His head felt heavy and pounded against his skull. "Zane..."

Zane stopped working to look at his teammate. "Are you okay, my friend? You seem pale."

"I don't...feel very...okay."

Zane gasped when Jay collapsed to the floor, hitting his head against the edge of the workbench. The nindroid knelt down to offer him help, but the nasty gash on Jay's head kept bleeding uncontrollably, and the look of Jay lying on the floor and bleeding out tainted the vision of the nindroid...

A/N: This is a rather short oneshot, sorry!

The morning arose like any other he had witnessed. The sun shone brightly, the birds chirped happily, and the thunderclouds had gone by during the night, after it had rained heavily.

The Master of Lightning stretched in the bed but refused to wake up and leave the soft, warm space between the sheets.

Turning to the side, he expected to sling his arm around a familiar waist, but instead his arm flopped onto the bed.

His eyes opened at once, taking in the empty space right next to him that was usually occupied by his girlfriend.

"Nya?" He turned on his back to look at the bathroom door, but it was wide open. Although Nya would usually keep the bathroom door unlocked when she would occupy it, she would always close it. Always.

So she was not in there.

"Why do I feel like I've already..." Jay shook his head, not impressed by his thoughts. A sliver of doubt settled in the pit of his stomach, trying to tell him something, but if he didn't know what he felt, then it probably held no importance.

He got out of bed, did everything he needed to do in the bathroom, then walked to the kitchen, where he saw Lloyd and Cole preparing breakfast and Zane telling them how to handle the food. Jay sniffed the air and detected the smell of lentil soup and mashed potatoes with eggs.

Jay stopped at the doorway and stared inside. Something was off about the scenery in front of him. Something looked familiar.

"Hey, guys, uh..." Jay sat down and carefully asked, "What's for breakfast?"

"Lloyd wanted mashed potatoes and I wanted soup, so we made both," Cole explained, grabbing a ladle and beginning to pour everyone some soup into their bowls. Then he placed the bowls on the table.

Jay's mouth dropped open.

"You don't seem too excited," Cole said, turning to him.

Jay quickly shook his head. "No, no, I am. I like both. Um, are Nya and Kai...at their parents'?"

Lloyd slowly turned to his friend and nodded. "Yeah, how'd you know?"

"Just a lucky guess."

The conversation shortly stopped before Zane chimed in, "We need to continue working on the blueprint of the new bike, Jay."

The Blue Ninja's head snapped toward Zane, who looked taken aback by the sudden movement. "But Nya is not here."

Before Zane could open his mouth, Jay's ears detected Lloyd's voice. It sent an unnecessary shiver down his spine.

"She could just look over the plans you'll have made, no?" Lloyd suggested, right before stuffing his mouth with his spoon.

"Hm... I guess."

After breakfast, Jay and Zane walked to the base and started their quest to figure out how to better their already-good work.

A while passed by, but the longer he worked, the more exhausted Jay became. His head felt heavy and pounded against his skull. The pain radiated off of him like the deep desire to sink to the floor. "Zane..."

Zane stopped working to look at his teammate. "Are you okay, my friend? You seem pale."

"I don't...feel very...well."

Zane gasped when Jay collapsed to the floor, hitting his head against the edge of the workbench. The nindroid knelt down to offer him help, but the nasty gash on Jay's head kept bleeding uncontrollably, and the look of Jay lying on the floor and bleeding out tainted the vision of the nindroid...

A/N: This is a rather short oneshot, sorry!

The morning arose like any other he had witnessed. The sun shone brightly, the birds chirped happily, and the thunderclouds had gone by during the night, after it had rained heavily.

Jay's eyes shot open. His hand shot out to his side, but Nya was not lying there so his arm fell flat on the sheets.

Jay sat up and ventured out of his bedroom, dismissing the fact that he was still wearing his pajamas, and headed for the kitchen, where he saw Lloyd and Cole preparing breakfast and Zane telling them what to do.

Jay sniffed the air and detected the smell of lentil soup and mashed potatoes with eggs.

His nerves spiked up.

"Good morning, Jay," Zane said. Cole and Lloyd turned toward the doorway upon hearing their friend enter the kitchen, giving him a welcoming smile.

Jay, however, didn't return their smiles and stormed over to the stovetop. He looked down at the meals and felt hot bile rise up his throat.

He turned to Cole and pointed at him shakily. "You wanted soup..." Then he pointed at Lloyd. "And you wanted mashed potatoes. So you made both."

Cole and Lloyd exchanged side glances. "Um, yeah," Lloyd said, "how'd you know?"

Before answering his question, Jay turned to Zane and pointed at him. "You're going to tell me we need to work on the bike!"

"I...am. How have you come to this conclusion?" Zane's eyes softened in concern for his friend. "Your heart rate is rapidly increasing, Jay, and so is your breathing. Are you okay?"

"Guys." Jay pulled on his hair, trying to understand what was going on. "I've lived this day before."

Silence.

"I swear I'm not crazy!" Jay started pacing around, trying to come up with a reasonable conclusion. "No, no, I'm not crazy. It's just that I've already experienced today!" He laughed. "This is not happening now, no, haha!"

The other three looked at each other with furrowed eyebrows.

"Jay—" Lloyd began, but he was cut off by Jay's high-pitched laughter.

"Let me guess," the Blue Ninja said, pointing at Kai and Nya's empty seats at the dining table. "They're at their parents', but they didn't tell you why."

Lloyd's lips thinned. "You're right."

"I know I'm right! It's because I have experienced this whole day before! Twice. No, thrice. Is thrice a word? Three times. Whatever. I'm right!"

"Jay," Cole slowly said, walking up to his best friend and holding him by his shoulders.

Jay's smile slowly dropped. "You don't believe me."

"It's not that we don't believe you, Jay," Cole said softly, leading him to the table and making him take a seat. "It's just that it is very much impossible to relive a day over and over again."

"But—"

"Cole is correct, Jay," Zane agreed. "It is scientifically impossible for a day to be repeated the way you suggest today has been."

"No, Zane, please—"

"Are you sure you haven't hit your head, Jay?" Lloyd asked. "Maybe you've just had a bad dream."

Jay shook his head quickly, but he couldn't get a word out. His friends didn't believe him. They didn't think he was telling the truth.

"I suggest having breakfast," Zane told him, placing a bowl of Cole's soup in front of Jay before doing the same with Lloyd's mashed potatoes. "You look paler than usual. I do not want you to lose consciousness."

Jay looked at his friends and took a deep breath. Maybe he was overreacting. What if he really had been dreaming this whole time? What if he was deluding himself into thinking things that had never happened?

So he watched as everybody else sat down around him and began eating. He picked up his spoon and then started eating as well.

Later that day, when Zane had reminded him of the bike that still needed to be fixed, Jay refused, stating he wanted to go lie down.

Zane agreed but wouldn't let him get out of his sight. The two walked down the corridor and entered Jay and Nya's bedroom.

But right then, as the door closed behind them, Jay's head started spinning, his environment started rotating at a dangerous speed.

"Zane...I don't..."

"Jay!"

Zane reached out for Jay, tried to grab him, tried to stop him from plummeting down, but Jay's body was out of his reach. His temple hit the edge of his nightstand in an instant. Blood pooled around Jay's head like a crimson halo as he lay on the floor unmoving...

A/N: a rather short oneshot, sorry!

The morning arose like any other he had witnessed. The sun shone brightly, the birds chirped happily, and the thunderclouds had gone by during the night, after it had rained heavily.

Jay snapped his eyes open and got out of bed before he so much as thought about the beginning of a new day.

Because this was not a new day. He could feel it in his bones.

When he entered the kitchen, he skipped out on the greeting and stormed toward the stovetop where he found Cole making soup and Lloyd making mashed potatoes.

"Good morning, Jay," Zane said politely, but Jay ignored him.

"I'm stuck in a time loop!"

Cole and Lloyd looked at each other questioningly.

"Repeat that," Lloyd told Jay, who said the same thing again.

"Uh, Jay, are you...okay?" Cole asked, moving forward to place his hands on Jay's shoulder, but the Blue Ninja dodged his touch.

"No, guys, listen!" Jay pointed at them individually. "Cole, you wanted to make soup. Lloyd, you wanted to make mashed potatoes. Zane, you're going to tell me about the bike we still have to fix. Kai and Nya are at their parents' but no one knows why." He pulled on his hair in despair. "I'm not crazy! I'm stuck in a time loop!"

"Jay, have you slept well last night?" Zane asked, concerned. "Perchance you require a bit more rest."

Jay stilled and stared at the nindroid. Then he groaned. "You can't just say 'perchance', Zane!"

"My apologies."

"Maybe it's the hunger speaking," Cole suggested, placing everybody's bowls on the table.

"No, Cole, you don't get it." Tears pricked in Jay's eyes, the desperation rolling off his tongue in clashing waves. "I've been reliving this day for about five days. Nothing changes. Everything's the same. You guys don't understand me." He released a shaky breath. "The day always ends with me feeling like I'm gonna puke, then I faint. Every time. Without fail. I don't—I don't—"

Lloyd furrowed his eyebrows. "Jay—"

"Lloyd, believe me, please," Jay begged, before a sob shook his body. "I don't want to live this day again. Why won't this day end?"

The room fell quiet. Jay could practically smell their disbelief, and he didn't know however else to convince them of his stance. They wouldn't believe his words, his tears. Jay wasn't one to cry for fun.

He was reliving the same day over and over again.

He was certain of that.

But how could he prove it?

"How about we talk after breakfast?" Lloyd said, turning to Cole. "Can you please give Jay the mashed—"

"No. No, I'm not hungry." Jay shook his head, the mere thought of eating making him nauseous.

"Try to eat, Jay," Cole insisted, taking him by the shoulders and leading him over to the dining table. "It'll be good for you."

Heaving a sigh, Jay picked up his spoon and ate the soup, leaving the mashed potatoes untouched. He was sure anything solid would not stay in his stomach for too long.

After breakfast, Zane suggested for Jay to lie back down, so he led him back to Jay and Nya's bedroom.

"Zane, you have to believe me," Jay spoke softly. "I'm telling the truth. I'm stuck in a time loop. I'm not crazy."

Although Zane reasonably thought Jay was, in fact, crazy, he didn't voice his thoughts in order to spare Jay the heartache. "Tell me more."

Jay's eyes lit up at the chance he was given to explain his predicament. "It's been the same few steps all over again, Zane. I wake up. Nya isn't beside me. I walk to the kitchen. Lloyd makes mashed potatoes. Cole makes soup. I eat the food. Then I pass out. And then I wake up, and everything starts again."

They stop inside Jay's bedroom and the door shuts behind them.

Zane hums. "Let me entertain your idea for a moment. How do you think this time loop keeps happening?"

"I don't know. But there has to be a trigger or something, like there is in those types of movies, you know?"

Zane thought about it for a moment, trying to genuinely help his friend, but his rational mind didn't allow him to entertain this hypothetical. "Jay, are you certain you haven't hit your head?"

Jay shook his head. "No. In fact, I think every time I relive the day, I wake up with a very slight headache. Maybe I hit my head when I fall." He laughed despite himself.

"You know, there is this horror film about a time loop." Jay flopped down on his bed and tried to recall the happenings in said film. "I don't remember the title but it's about this girl reliving the same day over and over again."

"And how does she figure out how to stop the loop?"

"Oh, she finds out her friend's been putting something into her cupcake that makes her relive the same day and stuffs the cupcake into her friend's mouth instead of eating it herself at the climax. The friend dies, too."

Jay laughed, recalling the film as a funny clip, but his laughter slowly died down as realization settled in.

Zane's lips thinned. "Do you believe—"

"That the food I've been eating every morning of these past few same days has been the trigger for the time loop?" Jay sat up and rubbed his temples. "I don't want to, but there isn't anything else I can think of."

"That would mean either Lloyd or Cole has been drugging your plate," Zane said, hating the fact that he was even thinking about one of their friends harming Jay in any way.

"I know how to know," Jay said, standing up and walking over to Zane.

"Tell me."

"Zane, until this today, I ate both dishes, but today I only ate Cole's soup because I physically cannot stomach mashed potatoes right now."

Suddenly, it clicked in Zane's head. "Meaning if you relive this day again, it is Cole who has been harming you."

"Exactly." Jay gritted his teeth. "Zane, you won't remember this conversation. But I want you to promise me one thing."

"Anything."

"Don't catch me."

"What?"

Just then, Jay fell back, unconscious, and hit his head on the edge of his nightstand. Zane stood in shock as he watched Jay's head bleed out at a rapid pace...

A/N: oneshot, sorry!

The morning arose like any other he had witnessed. The sun shone brightly, the birds chirped happily, and the thunderclouds had gone by during the night, after it had rained heavily.

Jay woke up with an uneasy stomach.

He turned to the side and confirmed that Nya was not lying next to him.

She wasn't in the bathroom either.

With his heart weighing down his chest heavily, he stood up, left the bedroom, and stopped in the kitchen doorway.

The smell of Cole's lentil soup clogged up his nostrils and made him snarl at his best friend's back.

Zane was the first one to notice Jay in the doorway. He greeted him like he usually would, but Jay only stared back at him. "Are you all right, Jay?"

The bitterness on the tip of Jay's tongue was begging to see the light of day but Jay pushed it to the pit of his stomach where it only caused a mere discomfort.

Zane didn't remember their conversation.

But Jay did.

"Whatcha makin', Cole?" Jay asked, unable to hide the sliver of disgust in his tone.

Cole blinked, surprised at the tone Jay used on him, but answered with the same calm he always had. "Lentil soup. Lloyd wanted to make—"

"Mashed potatoes," Jay finished his sentence for him, "but you wanted soup. So you made both."

"That's...true."

Of course, it is, Jay thought. Because I've eaten your soup one too many times.

With a provocative smile on his face, Jay sat down and watched as Cole placed a plate of mashed potatoes and a bowl of lentil soup in front of him.

"Eat up, buddy," Cole said, smiling. "Hope you like it."

"Thanks."

Jay picked up the spoon and pretended to take a bite when everyone turned back to the stovetop. "Um, Cole? I think you might have added a bit too much lemon juice to this, it's so...acidic."

"Acidic?" Cole turned around and frowned at the bowl. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know, Cole. It's weird."

Cole rounded the table and stared down at the soup. Then he shook his head. "No, it's good. I didn't change anything about my recipe. Eat up."

Jay shook his head and scooped up a spoonful of soup before lifting it up to Cole, who jerked back a step.

It was subtle but noticeable, and Jay sure as hell noticed Cole's hesitation.

"I don't need to taste it to know I did a good job." Cole chuckled and turned around to walk back to the stove but was stopped by Jay's hand curling around his wrist.

"Why won't you taste your own soup, Cole?" Jay's voice went down an octave but came out as a mere whisper. "What's so scary about your soup, Cole?"

Cole turned around to look at Jay. Their gazes met.

"What are you hiding in your soup, Cole?"

Cole took a large step back and laughed nervously, glancing at Lloyd and Zane, who were silently watching the two, before looking back at Jay, who stood up from his seat with a glare aimed at Cole so cold it froze his blood.

"What are you hiding, Cole?"

In a split second, Cole's shock turned into disbelief. "Jay, you're being delusional. I'm not hiding anything in soup. Stop being so annoying and eat the food that others, AKA I, have made specifically for you."

"Specifically for me, you say?"

Rolling his eyes, Cole walked back over to Jay and picked up the spoon. He scooped up some soup and tried to feed it to Jay, but he quickly turned his head to the side to dodge the spoon making it anywhere near his mouth.

"Stop being so difficult and eat the soup, Jay!"

"No!" Jay pushed Cole, making him stumble backwards. "You're...you're..." Even the thought of it scared Jay. "You're trying to poison me. You have been poisoning me."

In the heat of the moment, Jay grabbed the bowl of soup, ran to the open window, and threw it out.

"NO!" Cole jumped up and tried to get to the window before Jay could let go of the bowl, but it was too late.

They all watched as the ceramic shattered upon impact with the ground and the contents splattered across the grass.

"You idiot!" Cole whipped his head in Jay's direction, his eyes furious and irate. "Look at what you've done!"

Jay sneered back at him. "And what exactly have I done?"

"You're supposed to die!"

Cole went to punch Jay in the face but he quickly dodged out of his reach.

"Say what now?" Jay stared at Cole open-mouthed and in complete and utter disbelief.

He turned to Lloyd and Zane, hoping for an explanation from them, but Jay came to the horrifying conclusion that they were gone.

It was only him and Cole.

"You're meant to die, Jay," Cole seethed, lunging forward but unable to grab Jay. "You have to die!"

"What is going on?!" Jay threw himself out of Cole's path and landed on the floor on his stomach. Groaning, he rolled onto his back and looked up at Cole, who was holding a large, sharp, dangerous butcher's knife in his hands.

Cole lifted it up in the air and went to stab Jay in the chest, but Jay rolled out of his aim just in time.

"Die!" Cole swung the knife in Jay's direction but couldn't hit him anywhere. "You have to! You can't live!"

"Have you lost your mind, Cole?!"

Jay tried to run away, but the door was on the other side of the room, too far away from him. He still tried to make a run for it, but Cole stopped right in front of him, pinning him against the fridge with the knife right under Jay's throat.

It was so easy. Only one slice, and everything would be over for Jay. One slice.

"Why, Cole?" Jay choked out, desperately trying to find out why he was about to be killed by his best friend.

"Because I have to," Cole replied curtly. "I have no other choice."

Jay squeezed his eyes shut and let a tear escape. Then, when he opened them again, he looked at Cole's left. His mouth lifted in a relieved grin. "Guys!"

Cole stilled. "Guys?" He turned toward the doorway, but the other ninja were not there.

It was then that he knew what was about to happen.

And it happened quickly.

Jay overpowered Cole and took the knife in one swift move. He knew it was either Cole who would bite the dust this day or him, and Jay was really not in the mood to die anytime soon, so he shoved the knife into Cole's chest, right through his heart.

With tears pooling in his eyes, Cole glanced down at his chest, seeing the knife embedded in his flesh. He turned back to Jay and smiled, confusing him.

"I am so sorry, Jay. I will always be. I never meant to do it. I never meant to make you fall."

Jay furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. "Huh? Never meant to what?"

Jay's eyes traveled down Cole's chest, but there was no blood. Instead, a golden mist surrounded Cole and then filled the entire room until everything else was engulfed by the mist. Everything but Cole and Jay.

Cole smiled through his tear-stricken face. "You have to wake up now, Jay. It's been a long time."

"Wake up? But I am awake? What is it with this day, man?"

A sudden nausea hit Jay like a brick and weighed him down, his head heavy and unbearable to keep upright.

"What—"

Jay stumbled backwards and fell into the cloud of gold that caught him like a pillow. It was so soft, so comfortable, so heavenly. Like a cloud of warm contentment lulling him to sleep.

As his eyes closed with heavy lids, Jay heard one last thing Cole said to him before letting the darkness overtake him.

"Wake up, Jay."

A/N: sorry

Jay's eyes opened in an instant, the lights so blinding he immediately closed them shut again to escape the penetration of the morning sun.

The dawn peeked through the open blinds that should have been closed. Why hadn't Nya closed them before she had gone to sleep? She would always make a fuss about being woken up by the sun in the early morning, hours before training.

Jay's head pounded against his cranium in rhythmic syllables, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four.

A groan escaped his lips as he tried to move his face to the side but it was an impossible task. His head was hurting too much. His body was too sore.

Dark confusion crawled up his spine and settled in his chest. His bones felt stiff. His knuckles needed to be cracked.

He moved his fingers but every one of his muscles moved at the speed of a slug, slow and unsteady, and Jay couldn't figure out why.

His throat was dry.

The linen sheet pressing on his skin was uncomfortable.

He couldn't feel his feet.

What is going on?

Jay furrowed his eyebrows in perplexity, but even that small act of movement shot a pang of pain straight up to his head. But being the person he was, he had endured lots of pain throughout the years, so he tried to move more of his facial muscles.

There was something on his forehead, and Jay couldn't figure out what it was. It was pressing down on his skin uncomfortably and incredibly itchy underneath, but Jay could barely move a finger to scratch it.

Where even was he?

The bright light he had been greeted with had died down and was now a mere orange tone coming from the window. Speaking of window, that window was not his.

The window in his bedroom was to his right. This one was to his left.

A ventilator was encapsulating his mouth and nose, helping him breathe. The mask was intolerable.

Then he finally figured out what was causing the itch on his forehead. It was a bandage fully wrapped around his head.

Oh.

Realization dawned on him like a truck hitting a brick wall going over the speed limit. He was in a hospital room. The white walls and furniture indicated as such.

Jay couldn't move his neck, but his eyes were mobile, so he moved them around and took in his surroundings. The bland color reminded him of why he hated being in the hospital. There was a TV across from him on the wall, but the dust it had collected on the screen told him it had not been used in a while, or at least taken care of. There were a few potted plants here and there, and Jay could not tell whether they were real or not. Not that he cared much anyway. Machines surrounded his bed, impossible to recognize but obviously important enough to be there. A few empty chairs were in the room and pushed against the wall, as well as a small couch.

Then there was an uncomfortable-looking armchair to his right, but it was not empty, no.

On it was Nya, curled up into a blanket and sleeping in an awkward position.

Jay opened his mouth and tried to say her name, but he couldn't, either because he was too tired to or because he had not physically drunk any water.

Either way, he tried to call her, over and over again, until a sound finally left his mouth. "Nya." It was barely above a whisper, and apparently not enough to wake her up.

So he tried it again. "Nya."

And again. "Nya."

But it still wouldn't wake her up. So he gave up and tried it utmost best to angle his face so that he could stare at her for a little while longer, until her own internal clock would wake her up.

Her hair was open, a tad bit longer than he remembered, and untamed, but it framed her face beautifully. Her skin was a shade too pale for his liking. Her body, although he couldn't see it, looked smaller through the thin fabric of the cream blanket. Her cheekbones were more prominent than he remembered. Her lips looked chapped and dry.

Right next to the armchair she was sleeping on, there were lots of flowers in vases both on the floor and on the tray table, most of them different shades of blue.

Jay tried to remember something. Anything. He was in the hospital, in a hospital bed, with monitors stabilizing him, and a head injury. Something serious must have happened to him to make him land there.

Jay's memories failed him. Was it amnesia?

But he could remember a few things. He remembered his ninja career well, and he knew his friends and girlfriend. His last biggest mission was against the Crystal King, or the Overlord, and his crystalized minions. Then, after that was done and everything in Ninjago had settled again, his days had been nothing but boring.

After that milestone of a memory, Jay couldn't remember what had happened. More importantly, he couldn't remember why he was in a hospital bed.

A guitar riff made him jump the slightest bit, the unexpected tune scaring him. It was Nya's cellphone ringing on the surface of the table right next to her.

Jay smiled. He remembered that tune. It was the guitar riff he had played on his own guitar back in Prime Empire as Superstar Rockin' Jay.

Nya stirred in her sleep until her eyes opened and her hand shot out and landed on her phone with a careless splat. She lifted the screen and looked at the caller ID.

Then she groaned and picked up the phone, placing it against her ear. "What, Kai?"

"Yeah, yeah, I've been up. Yes, I ate breakfast."

"What? Yeah, I ate, um, soup. Lentil soup. They served it a few hours ago. Mhm, it was good."

"No, I don't know when I'll come back to the monastery. I was planning on staying for at least a few more days."

"Yes, Kai, I know, but I don't want to leave him alone."

She rolled her eyes and straightened up, her back cracking. A contented sigh left her lips. "I'll call you back. Mhm. And tell the others I'm fine. I'm sick of having to pick up three different calls every day."

"Yes, I'll make sure to eat lunch and dinner today. No, you don't have to come and spoon feed me. I'm warning you, Kai, don't you dare."

"Will you come visit him today?"

"Great, you know where we'll be. Look, I'll hang up now, you're turning all overprotective again. I can't deal with this at—" She threw a glance at the time. "—seven thirty in the morning. Yeah. Mhm."

"Love you too. Take care. Bye."

She ended the call and put her phone back on the table. The pads of her thumbs rubbed against her eyelids in an attempt to wake her up fully. A yawn still managed to escape her mouth.

Then she sighed and stood up. "Good morning, Jay," she said tiredly, grabbing the blanket and folding it.

Jay smiled. "Good morning, my love. You know lying to your brother isn't a good thing to do."

Shaking her head, Nya turned back around to look at Jay, unimpressed. "Well, then he shouldn't call me so early in the morning. How am I supposed to know—"

Nya stopped talking abruptly when she realized what had just happened. "Jay?" The folded blanket fell out of her grasp and landed in front of her feet, undoing her previous work of folding it. Her hands flew up to her mouth and stifled the sob that shook her body, her eyes leaking tears before Jay could even blink.

Jay's eyes widened. "Don't cry, Nya. I'm sorry. Please don't cry."

"You're—" Nya coughed and moved closer to him until she stood right next to his bed. "You're awake," she whispered, unable to compose herself.

Then she flung her body on top of his and sobbed into his chest, her hands gripping his shoulders tightly. Her body pressed into his, and even though his body was still sore and weak, he embraced her back as best as he could. His right hand, which had an IV attached to it, now that he realized, found her back and rubbed it in small circles.

The door flung open and a few nurses entered the room, all on high alert at the loud sound of Nya's gut-wrenching sobs, but the moment they saw Jay looking back at them, they stopped. One of the nurses' clipboard fell out of her hands. Another one gasped loudly.

Two of the four nurses rushed over to Nya and tried to pry her off of Jay's body while the third nurse rushed to the heart monitor to check his vitals. The fourth nurse ran out of the room and screamed for a doctor.

"Hey! Don't grab her like that!" Jay told the nurses and gripped Nya's body tighter. He didn't like how they forced Nya away from him when she was so obviously breaking down and needed his closeness and his touch.

"Miss Smith, we need you to get off our patient," they tried to reason with her. "You are crushing him."

Nya lifted her face from Jay's chest to glare at the nurse. Her face was tear-stricken and her tears had transferred to the white sheet and left a wet spot right where Jay's heart was underneath.

"I'll crush you if you keep touching me."

Jay tried to hide his smile but instead let out an impolite laugh. Nya whipped her head back to him and looked at his smile for a second before her face crumpled again and tears flooded her eyes again.

"Oh, don't cry, Nya," Jay said soothingly and lifted his hand to her face to wipe away her tears. Nya closed her eyes and leaned into his touch.

"How is he able to lift his arm like that?" one of the nurses wondered. "He's been out cold for too long to move a single muscle this well."

"How amazing to see you awake, Mr. Walker," the doctor greeted with a bright smile as he walked inside the room. He stopped next to the door and squirted some hand sanitizer from the dispenser hanging on the wall onto his hands, rubbing them as he stepped over to the patient's bed. "May I ask you to get off the bed so that I can examine him, Miss Smith?"

Nya's eyes challenged the doctor to dare her to move again, but she gave up and got off the bed. "But I'm not leaving the room."

"I never asked you to."

Nya rounded the bed and stood on Jay's other side. She held his hand and tried to hold back another wave of tears that wanted to come up when Jay's hand squeezed hers back.

He had not done that the other thousands of times before.

The doctor and nurses ran multiple tests on Jay, beginning with his blood pressure and moving on to internal organs. Then, when so far everything was good, the doctor put on his gloves and felt around Jay's body through the covers, asking him if he felt every squeeze and touch.

After Jay passed that test as well, the doctor told a nurse to take a sample of Jay's blood, so Nya had to momentarily let go of his hand to allow the nurse to do her job. Meanwhile, the doctor grabbed Jay's other hand and told him to squeeze as hard as possible.

"Are you sure?" Jay asked the doctor, who nodded his head.

"Yes. As firmly as you can."

"Okay..." Jay squeezed the doctor's hand with all his might, until the strangled squeal he let out made Jay stop.

"Argh, okay, you are strong." The doctor grabbed his hand with his other hand and soothed it by pressing it lightly. "Mr. Walker, I am more than happy to tell you your recovery is going well. Your body has been well, it was only your awakening that we were anticipating with open arms."

"Does that mean you'll take off this mask? I really don't like it."

Laughing, the doctor carefully took the mask off of Jay's face and eyed the monitors to make sure Jay was breathing well on his own.

The nurse left the room with the vile of Jay's blood and the doctor also readjusted his stethoscope in an effort to announce he would leave Nya and Jay alone for a while.

"You are making a faster recovery now that you have awoken, but we will still keep you here until you are guaranteed to stand on your own feet. Your head injury has caused your body quite some trouble."

"Head injury?" Jay remembered the burning question on the tip of his tongue again. "What exactly happened? And why am I here?"

Nya frowned. "You don't remember?"

"Retrograde amnesia," the doctor said, sighing. "It is normal for a patient to forget what led up to their traumatic injury. Your memories should slowly return, Mr. Walker, but it'll be difficult to force them to return. You will have to wait."

"Okay?" Jay was dissatisfied with that answer. "Well, how long have I been out for? Feels like I slept through a whole war and the next parting of the world."

Nya and the doctor looked at each other silently, making Jay's Adam's apple bob up and down. "Nya?"

"I will return later today for more tests," the doctor said, before rushing out of the room, leaving Nya standing next to Jay's bed with a sad look on her face.

"Um, so, a lot happened." Nya laughed nervously but she was barely hanging on to her composure by a thread.

Able to sense the urgency of the conversation, Jay patted the spot next to him. Nya happily sat down on his bed and held his hand in both of hers. She played with his fingers as she tried to find the right words to present him.

"Maybe start with the beginning," Jay suggested, earning a look from Nya that made him laugh.

"You've still got some terrible humor, Jay." Nya shook her head and smiled, but her smile vanished within a moment again. "So..."

"So...? How long have in been out for? A couple hours? A few days? Don't tell me a week passed."

Nya's lips thinned. "Seven months."

Jay's mouth dropped open, his eyes widening. "No... Tell me you're joking."

But Nya's tears springing back into her eyes confirmed her statement. Her hands gripped onto his fingers tightly.

Although Jay wanted to throw question after question at her, he saw his girlfriend was barely able to stay upright, so he scooted away from her and allowed her to lie down next to him.

She did so quickly and clung to his side like he would evaporate if she so much as let him go for a second.

"Oh, my poor angel." Jay embraced her tightly and pressed his lips against her forehead, placing a gentle kiss on her skin. "Have you missed me?"

She nodded her head quickly, her face stuffed back in his chest. "You've been out cold for so long, Jay." She sniffed. "You missed Kai and Lloyd's birthdays and our anniversary."

Jay gasped. "No way!"

"Yeah," Nya whispered, right before she untangled her limbs from his and stood up. She smiled when he made a noise of complaint as she rounded the bed and went over to a small gift bag that was put on the table and pushed against the wall.

"What's that?" Jay asked, looking down at the bag with full curiosity. Nya handed it to him but soon realized he was not able to fully look down into it because of how his bed was angled to make him lie flat on his back.

She gave him the bright blue bag that had a small red bow attached to the front and told him not to look inside yet while she grabbed a small remote and pressed a button that made the upper part of the bed slowly rise up.

"Ooh, fancy," Jay said, grinning as he sat up with the bed. Once the bed stopped, Nya placed the remote back down and crawled back next to him, sitting crisscrossed, with her hands on her thighs.

She gestured toward the bag with a smile on her face. "Look inside."

Jay eagerly opened the bag and reached inside. His hand came back up holding a small jewelry box. He opened it at once, and a silver bracelet with several charms attached to it graced his eyes.

"I was hoping you'd wake up by the time our anniversary rolled in, but you didn't, so I couldn't give this to you," Nya explained. Then she pointed at the charms. "Look. They represent us."

Upon closer inspection, Jay recognized lots of small details about the charms. One was a lightning bolt and another one was a droplet of water, both very upfront with their meanings.

Another charm was that of a gaming controller, but Jay quickly realized it was not just any ordinary gaming controller but the one they had used in Prime Empire. So he guessed this charm had a double meaning: on one side it indicated his love for gaming, on the other side it was a nice reminder of actually having been inside his favorite video game.

The next charm was a simple wrench, and Jay knew it was there because of his passion for inventing, for creating and maintaining.

The charm next to that one was a feather. A more puzzling charm at first, but once it clicked, Jay almost let his tears drop right then and there. It was the same feather he was writing his poems with, the one he had specifically bought to brag to the others that he was "taking his work seriously." In reality, like Nya knew, Jay had only bought it to seem fancier while writing into his notebook that was filled with shorter poems about his interests as well as love letters for Nya.

The second-to-last charm was a pair of nunchucks, carefully crafted with lots of small details that his own nunchucks also had. The charm was silver but obviously a small replica of his golden nunchucks, back when they still had their powers.

The last charm was sitting smack center on the row of charms that were dangling down the bracelet. It was a very small, very precious replica of his half of their Yin-Yang pendant.

He instinctively tried to grab for the necklace that was usually around his neck, which had his actual half of their pendant hanging from it, but it wasn't there.

Understanding what he was looking for, Nya reached inside her sweatshirt and pulled out two necklaces: his and hers, attached, as one. "They didn't let you wear yours here so I've been wearing it with mine," she explained, her cheeks turning a tinge of pink as his smile grew exponentially.

She quickly took off his necklace and carefully placed it around his neck. With no shame in sight, Jay grabbed the pendant and gave it a gentle kiss while holding strong eye contact with Nya, who couldn't keep her grin from appearing on her lips. She was beyond elated.

As his lips disconnected from the pure gold surface, Jay's eyes traveled down Nya's face and took in her attire. She was wearing one of his old sweaters with his ninja logo printed on the left side of the chest as well as another large print on the back. His name was printed on the left sleeve in boxy white letters, and the blue fabric around her wrists was wet because of the many times she had wiped her eyes dry.

"Where'd you get these?" Jay asked, reaching out to touch the two pins that belonged to him that were now attached to the sweater she was wearing. His finger grazed over the smiley face pin, his eyebrows creasing. "And why do they look beat up?"

Both pins were severely scratched and worn down, the yellow paint barely peeking through the metal poking out from underneath.

Nya cleared her throat whilst glancing down at them, her mouth turned down at the memories. "They were the only thing I could save because your gi was...pretty much done for."

She could see the question burning the tip of his tongue, desperate to be set free, but she was mentally drained, too exhausted to explain what had happened to him when she had just gotten him back. She needed a moment, a few more minutes to gather her thoughts and prepare for the inevitable conversation.

So she pointed back to his anniversary gift. "Do you like it?"

"Oh!" Jay looked back down at it, his smile returning to his face. "Of course! I love it, Nya, thank you!" He handed her the box and asked her if she could clasp the bracelet around his wrist.

"Sure," she said, focusing on the task until the bracelet was secured in place. Jay gave it a good jiggle, making her chuckle.

"I like it a lot," he said, then smirked, already guessing the answer to his next question. "Although I do have to wonder if it has a certain counterpart to match the baby pendant..."

A sheepish look graced Nya's face, her dimples on display. She sighed mockingly. "You got me." Holding up her wrist, she slid the sleeve back and revealed a similar bracelet to his. "You have to understand me, Jay. It was a two-for-one deal, I couldn't say no."

After a thorough comparison to his bracelet, Jay conducted that their bracelets had the same water and lightning bolt charms. Instead of a wrench, Nya's charm was a hammer, and instead of a pair of nunchucks, Nya's charm was a small trident. While his charm was a feather to write his poems and letters with, Nya's charm was an open book, and when it was flipped over, Jay saw that there was a lightning bolt on the cover of the book.

The same book he was using for his writings.

Biting his lip, Jay couldn't suppress his grin as much as he tried to.

Lastly, Nya's small Yang pendant matched Jay's small Yin pendant. Instantly figuring out what to do, the pair fussed around with their bracelets until the pendant was complete.

Jay beamed, "That's so—"

"Adorable?" Nya finished his sentence eagerly. "Yeah, it is!"

"Now I feel horrible that I haven't gotten you anything..." Jay's mouth turned downward and his eyes shone with sapphire tears. He knew realistically he was justified for having missed his anniversary, but it still stung.

Shaking her head, Nya let her hands cup his face in a gentle embrace, her sleeve falling back over her wrist. "No, the best gift you could have gotten me was this." She let her eyes look over his face to make him understand her point. "You. Here. Awake. A physical gift could never compare to you being with me again, awake and alert."

She slowly leaned in and brushed her lips against his, sparks of longing emerging from the initial contact alone. Nya pulled away again after the short kiss but his lips followed hers in an attempt to prolong the contact, allured by her nature.

Although Nya's senses begged for a longer kiss, for a bit more, making out ten minutes after having been in a coma for seven months wouldn't really be a good option for the couple.

So Nya reluctantly pulled away and lost his contact.

Until one of his arms shot up and his hand nestled in her hair. The same hand pulled her back down and caused their lips to reconnect in a more urgent kiss, one both needed and wanted.

So Nya let it be and allowed her brain to turn off. She melted into him and let him lead, her lips following his in a hypnotic way, fully entranced in their moment.

When Jay tugged on her waist, she let him lift her onto his body and rest comfortably on his lower stomach. She would have wondered how his strength had come back to him this quickly had she not been too far gone during their little makeout session.

The two registered a sound around them, but none of them stopped to look at what had happened.

"Hi, Nya," Kai whispered, in anticipation of finding her asleep on the armchair like he had in the past. "We brought you some take—"

The couple on the bed froze.

Kai's sigh filled the room. "Nya, I know you miss him, but kissing him in his sleep? Really? And getting on top of him?"

Nya retracted her lips from Jay's and glanced over at the doorway, where Kai, Lloyd and Zane were standing. Kai was holding a bag with a Chinese restaurant's logo on it and Lloyd was already stuffing his face with a forkful of spicy noodles.

"These noodles are amazing," Lloyd said, his mouth full. Somebody had to fill the awkward silence.

But then Jay slowly opened his eyes and looked at his friends. It took them a moment to realize what was happening, but when realization sank in, Kai dropped the bag of food, Lloyd choked on his bite, and Zane smiled so hard that it was likely he would damage his system with an overload of emotions.

Nya frowned, looking at the bag on the floor in front of Kai's feet. "My takeout."

Stepping over the food, Kai and the others rushed over to the bed in a hurry. Nya only barely got off of Jay before Kai flung his body on Jay's in a bone-crushing hug.

"Look at Mr. I-Don't-Cry Smith gettin' all emotional," Nya teased with a laugh.

"Shut up." Kai released Jay and wiped his eyes dry. "It's the dust. They really need to clean this place."

"We are in a hospital," Zane said, making the other three chuckle.

"Shut up, Zane." Kai turned back to Jay and grinned at him. "So happy to have you back, man. I promise I'll never bully you again."

Jay raised his eyebrows.

"Okay," Kai gave in, smiling. "I promise I'll try to never bully you again." His smile faded, remembering the last time he had spoken to Jay before the incident had been of him treating the Blue Ninja horribly.

Even if it had always been jokes and giggles, it had been a harsh reminder for Kai that death and destruction could always happen, especially when he least expected it.

The phone rang with an annoying sound, and frankly, Kai was not in the mood to talk to anyone when he was this enraged.

He and Nya were at their parents' upon a last-minute call. Someone had broken in and taken the money Ray and Maya had been saving for the longest time for a vacation on the beach at a five-star resort, but now that the money was gone, their dreams were gone in tow. The TV was gone as well, but that was easily replaceable. Their shattered happiness, not so much.

When Kai looked at the caller ID, he got even angrier. "What, Jay?" he asked bitterly after picking up the call.

"Where are you guys? Lloyd said you've gone out but why didn't you tell—"

Kai pursed his lips to refrain from cussing Jay out. "This is why you're calling? Jay, I really can't talk right now."

"Right. Where even are you?"

"We're at our parents'. Look, I have to go now—"

"Why are you at your pa—"

Kai scowled. "Jay, I have no time to listen to your annoying voice. Stop being so irritating. I have to go. Bye."

"But—"

Kai didn't wait for another second as he pulled the phone away from his ear and ended the call.

"I can't remember what you've last said to me, but I'm sure whatever it was, it's forgiven," Jay said, making Kai frown.

"You don't remember?" he asked.

"Not a thing," Jay confirmed, "which is why I do need answers now."

"Hey!" Everyone looked at Lloyd, who handed Zane his takeout box and cleared his throat. "Answers can wait. It's my turn for a hug now."

Jay's smile brightened as he opened his arms. "Bring it in, buddy!"

Lloyd leaned down and wrapped his arms around Jay, who embraced him with equal force. After a few seconds, Lloyd's body began shaking.

"I'm happy you're awake, Jay," Lloyd said, trying to compose himself. He quickly wiped his tears away with his sleeve. "Man, this dust is...so dusty."

Zane rolled his eyes with at smile at Lloyd's antics and placed his takeout box on the table before initiating a hug with Jay as well.

Jay smiled. "Hey, Tin Can!"

"Hello, Jay." Zane grinned back at him. "I am more than thrilled to have you back. We have all missed you dearly."

"I can see that." Jay looked around at all his friends but one friend in particular was obviously absent. "So, where's Cole? Don't tell me he got distracted by some piece of cake. Do they even serve cake at hospitals?" He laughed.

The lack of response was deafening as the other four ninja silently stared at each other.

Jay followed their gazes and furrowed his eyebrows. "Guys. Where is Cole?"

Kai reluctantly cleared his throat, averting his eyes, refusing to make eye contact as he said, "He's gone."

Jay's eyes widened. "WHAT?"

"No, no," Nya quickly said, trying to calm her lover down. "Not gone gone. He's not dead. He's just...not with us."

"What, is he, like, on a mission?"

Nya and Kai looked at each other, their eyes having a conversation of their own. None of them had enough courage to open the can of worms that would surely cause more harm than good for their fellow ninja.

So Zane took it upon himself to clear the air, as difficult as it was to do. "No, Jay. Cole has left the team. We do not know where he is. He has cut all contact with us."

Jay's mouth opened but nothing came out. His face paled so white it was almost a cause for concern. Just in case, Zane checked his vitals and made sure he wouldn't pass out due to the shock.

"What?" Jay whispered. "Why? Don't tell me..." He looked at Zane in compressed anticipation. "Was it...because of me?"

Nya bit her lip and looked away, and that was all the confirmation Jay needed to have.

"Why? What did I do?"

"It's not what you did, Jay," Lloyd ensured, looking out the window to gather his thoughts. "It's what he couldn't do." His eyes connected with his friend's again. "To save you."

Jay's face blanked. His hands fisted the sheets next to his body as he let Lloyd's words sink in. "So what now? Where is he?"

"We honestly don't know," Kai said. "He wanted distance and we gave him distance."

"So you gave up on him?" Jay's face soured.

"No, we didn't," Zane said. "For the first few months, we tried to establish regular contact with him, but he stopped reciprocating the contact soon, saying he needed space. He has been blaming himself for your condition."

Jay closed his eyes and thought about his best friend, how he was somewhere out there, still blaming himself for something that Jay was sure he couldn't have changed the outcome of. He opened his eyes again and spoke with finality.

"I want answers. Now."

"Okay," Lloyd said, walking over to the armchair Nya had slept on and sitting down. Kai and Zane pulled the small couch forward and took a seat on it, and Nya sat right next to Jay on his bed.

"I guess we should start at the beginning." Kai scratched his head, looking down ashamed. "So Nya and I were at our parents' because of a robbery at the shop. Mom and Dad's money and TV were stolen so we went to investigate. While we were there, you called me and asked about where we were and I...I...wasn't really thinking straight, and I, um, called your voice annoying and you irritating and spoke very angrily." Tears flooded back into Kai's eyes. He looked at the wall to control his emotions. "I'm so sorry."

"You know I forgave you a long time ago, Kai."

Kai shook his head and tried not to sob. "No, Jay, you don't get it. You could have never woken up, and those would have been my last words to you. That's messed me up, man."

Jay closed his mouth and thought about what Kai said. He could understand him well, so he knew saying something encouraging and reassuring wouldn't help.

Lloyd picked up on Kai's words and continued the story. "They left early in the morning so the rest of us had breakfast together. Then the alarm went off and we had to get ready for some action. It was a heist in the Sea of Sands, a gang of criminals trying to smuggle some illegal drugs across the desert to ship them overseas."

The morning arose like any other he had witnessed. The sun shone brightly, the birds chirped happily, and the thunderclouds had gone by during the night, after it had rained heavily.

The Master of Lightning stretched in the bed but refused to wake up and leave the soft, warm space between the sheets.

Turning to the side, he expected to sling his arm around a familiar waist, but instead his arm flopped onto the bed.

"What the—" Jay opened his eyes and noticed that his girlfriend was, in fact, not in her spot on the bed. "Nya? You in the bathroom?"

He turned on his back to look at the bathroom door, but it was wide open. Although Nya would usually keep the bathroom door unlocked when she would occupy it, she would always close it. Always.

So she was not in there.

Turning back around, Jay sighed as he mentally prepared himself for leaving his small cocoon. He groggily got out of bed, went to the empty bathroom, did everything he needed to do in there, and then walked back out. Then he put on his gi before walking out of the bedroom.

His destination was the kitchen, where he saw Lloyd and Cole preparing breakfast and Zane telling them how to handle the food. Jay sniffed the air and detected the smell of lentil soup and mashed potatoes with eggs.

"Double breakfast? Yeah-yuh!" Jay sat down in his seat and poured himself a glass of orange juice.

"Lloyd wanted the mashed potatoes and I wanted the soup," Cole explained, grabbing a ladle and beginning to pour everyone some soup into their bowls. Then he placed the bowls on the table.

Jay's nostrils danced happily, the scent of the soup immediately lightening his mood. He waited until Zane, Cole and Lloyd sat at the table before digging in.

"Where's Nya?" He looked around. "And Kai?"

"They're at their parents'. Something happened or something," Lloyd explained poorly, with food in his mouth. "They didn't say what it was before they left."

"Weird," Jay said, taking out his cellphone. "Let me ask." He tapped on the first Smith sibling's contact on his recently called list.

"What, Jay?" Kai's voice came through two rings later, annoyed and strained.

"Where are you guys? Lloyd said you've gone out but why didn't you tell—"

Kai rudely interrupted Jay's sentence, making Jay's eyes widen.

"This is why you're calling? Jay, I really can't talk right now."

"Right. Where even are you?"

"We're at our parents'. Look, I have to go now—"

"Why are you at your pa—"

"Jay, I have no time to listen to your annoying voice. Stop being so irritating. I have to go. Bye."

"But—"

Jay sat at the dining table with his mouth agape as three loud beeps indicated that the phone call had been ended by the other side.

He removed his phone from his ear and stared at it. "Well, that was rude."

"Didn't tell ya?" Cole asked Jay, right before stuffing his mouth with some soup. He ripped off a piece of wheat bread and dunked it into the soup, then picked up his spoon and scooped up the bread, placing it into his mouth. "Let me guess, he also insulted you?"

"Wow. How did you know?" Jay asked, sarcasm dripping down his words, easily telling Cole the answer. "He didn't say anything. Now I'm more curious. And kind of concerned."

"I am sure if they needed our assistance, they would call. We should not worry about situations that have not happened yet." Zane dabbed a paper towel on the table in front of him where Lloyd had just spilled his orange juice.

Lloyd smiled sheepishly and grabbed a paper towel of his own, mirroring what Zane was doing to make the cleanup process faster.

Then the alarm loudly rang from the loudspeakers in the upper corners of the room. Pixal's voice followed the alarm and informed them of a gang of criminals smuggling drugs across the Sea of Sands.

The four ninja left their breakfast on the table as they stood up simultaneously and smiled at each other.

"Showtime?" Cole asked.

Lloyd nodded. "Showtime."

"We got into our respective vehicles but your jet was still in need of reparations," Lloyd continued. "So you had to take the bike that you, Nya and Zane had been working on."

"It had not been finished at the time, but it was not a hazard to use," Zane explained the condition of the bike Jay had used.

"Are you guys sure it's safe?" Cole asked, pointing at the unfinished bike Jay had just sat on. "Doesn't look like it should be in use at all."

"It's fine, Boulder Brain." Jay smirked. "Don't tell me you're worried about my well-being." He wiggled his eyebrows up and down teasingly, his hands on the handles of the bike and getting used to the rubbery texture.

"Psh. As if." Cole jumped up into the cockpit of his mech and pressed the button that powered the machine to life. "I'm just making sure you won't whine the whole way there when it breaks down. I won't be the one carrying you home, Zap Trap."

"Wow, thank you! What a great friend you are!"

"The best!"

"Are you guys all ready to go?" Lloyd asked through the communicators. "We don't have time to bicker."

"You're right, Lloyd. Jay, apologize."

"Hey!" Jay looked up at Cole and narrowed his eyes. "When we get back home, you'll get beat, Cole. Mark my words."

"Let me guess," Jay said. "It was a hazard to use."

Zane and Lloyd exchanged sad glances.

The sand was a terrain that was a pain to drive on, but Jay and Lloyd were both on their bikes, so they had to bite their teeth and bear it. Zane was up in the air in his own jet and Cole was in his mech, sprinting across the sand with large steps that kept up with the speed of the two bikes.

"There they are!" Lloyd pointed at six large trucks about a kilometer away from them.

"The Sea of Sands ends in about four kilometers," Zane said. "The end is connected to the beach. I am certain their fellow criminals are waiting there on boats, possibly even in a submarine."

Cole pursed his lips, knowing what that meant. "So if we lose them, we won't ever catch them out in the water. Got it."

"Cole, Jay, get out there and stay behind them. Try to take them down," Lloyd commanded. "Zane and I will try to cut them off from the front. Come on, Zane!" He accelerated and took off before any of the others could say anything. Zane accelerated as well.

"Come on, Jay!" Cole said, taking faster steps with his mech, leaving his friend behind.

"Hey!" Jay yelled. He revved the bike and caught up to Cole.

"The gang was a tough one to take on," Lloyd explained. "They had some high-tech gadgets we couldn't have known to tackle. So it was straining to catch up to them, let alone take them down." He looked down. "I just...regret I ever let you use that bike."

"Come on, Jay, keep up!" Cole's large mech moved with high speed, unlike Jay's bike that was refusing to cooperate.

"I'm trying, Cole!"

"Guys, you've gotta be faster!" Lloyd screamed at the two. "They're speeding up!"

"We were at the edge of a steep canyon," Zane said, his frown deepening. "That was the fastest route for the criminals to get to the beach."

Jay could already guess what was about to happen in the recap. Still, with his heart in his throat, he asked, "How steep are we talking?"

"Approximately sixty-seven meters."

"Ha! Take that!" Jay shot lightning at the truck he was closest to and laughed in glee when one of the back wheels exploded upon impact.

The truck was slowed down until it was left stranded in the desert, the other trucks making no effort to come and get it. A few goons could be heard cursing and cussing out their accomplices.

"Cole!" Jay screamed into his communicator, earning a loud 'what' from his best friend. "Do you have all the water? I'm thirsty!"

"You grew up in this desert, Jay!" Cole screamed back. He slowed down and ran in a parallel line to Jay's bike. "How are you thirsty this quickly?"

"Just give me the water, dude," Jay said, his tone serious. "You're one to talk. You're in a mech with an A/C unit. I've been out in the open."

"Fine, fine, quit whining." Cole smiled as he fished out a bottle of water. Their bickering really needed to be cut short when they were on missions, but it was just too much fun. It was the only form of entertainment they got. "Here, catch!"

He opened the cockpit of his mech and reached out just far enough to chuck the water bottle at Jay. He watched as Jay lifted his arm closest to Cole and expected to catch the bottle without taking his eyes off the truck in front of them.

But it was a miscalculated decision.

The bottle missed his open palm.

It smacked him across his face.

Then landed on the sand.

Jay let out a loud hiss as he was thrown off balance on his bike. He lost control and quickly gripped the bike with both hands again.

"Jay, you're swerving!" Cole said, his eyes wide and his heart leaping out of his chest.

Jay was close to the canyon. Too damn close.

"No crap, Cole!"

Jay tried to gain control of his bike again, but it was a Herculean task. The sandy terrain was uneven and almost slippery for the unprepared wheels.

So Jay screwed trying to get back on track and instead hit the brakes.

But the bike didn't stop.

"What the heck?!" Jay hit the brakes again, and again, and again, but the bike didn't stop. It kept swerving from left to right.

Too close.

"Jay, stop the bike!"

He couldn't.

"The brakes aren't working, Cole!"

He was too close.

"Guys, what's going on?!"

Jay couldn't control the bike.

"Lloyd, his brakes aren't working!"

His heartbeat increased.

"What?!"

Adrenaline pumped through his veins.

"Jay, you're gonna fall!"

He couldn't answer.

He couldn't think rationally.

His front wheel went over the edge.

Then gravity took over.

"NOOO!"

"All I remember is this scream, this ear-deafening scream Cole gave when your bike went over the edge." Lloyd shuddered, tears gathering in his eyes upon recalling the tragic memory.

Reality slipped out of Jay's grasp like the soil under his wheels. His lungs expelled the oxygen he so desperately tried to keep in as his reflexes took over and made him scream at the top of his lungs, his arms flailing around.

His bike fell faster than he did. Jay managed to spin midair to avoid looking down as the ground came closer and closer and closer.

He didn't want to think about what was about to happen.

The others had a plan.

They surely did.

His eyes, fearful and beyond nervous, glanced up at the top of the canyon where Cole was looking down at him. The agony on Cole's face while watching his best friend plummet to his guaranteed death was painful to witness.

"JAY!" Cole cried out and jumped out of his mech.

He looked at Lloyd and Zane, who were letting the gang get away while they sped back over to him, and concluded that time was conspiring against them.

Without thinking clearly, Cole acted on pure instinct. He pressed his fists together, knelt down, and slammed them on the sand. His intention was to catch Jay by making a flat piece of ledge emerge from the canyon's vertical surface.

But he miscalculated how fast Jay was falling.

The rocks formed a new surface, right as Jay fell by.

Cole watched in undisclosed horror as the rocks he himself had called upon to catch Jay clashed against him as they emerged, hitting Jay squarely in his head and catapulting him a few meters away.

The Master of Earth felt Zane's jet move past him and dive down the canyon, the fierceness of the vehicle causing a wind unfamiliar to the desert that swept Cole's hair into his face, but his heart was long gone, leapt out of his chest, his gaze locked on the blue blur that got smaller and smaller the farther he was falling.

Jay's eyes were no longer looking back at Cole. They were closed. Since the impact with the rocks. There was blood on the rocks. So much blood. And on Jay's head too. No. The blood was painting the orangey brown surface red. Blood red. Zane's jet was too slow. No. Jay's body was limp. No, no, no!

Zane hesitating when telling a story was never a good sign. By now, Nya, Kai and Lloyd were freely crying their eyes out, and if Zane could have, he would have as well. He couldn't cry, but he could feel, and for once he wished he had turned off his emotion switch before starting the conversation.

Jay's eyes were closed as he took in the story and chewed on the heartbreak everyone around him was experiencing while reliving the moment. Zane's storytelling was amazing, his details were well appreciated, but sometimes he was a bit too good.

"You were mere inches out of my reach," Zane said. He looked down in shame, his next words coming out as a hollow whisper. "But I couldn't catch you in time."

Zane accelerated his speed for the third time that day, until he physically could not anymore. "Come on, come on, come on!" He opened the windshield and extended his arm out to grab on to Jay's limp hand, but it was out of reach still. The wind smacked him in the face, but Zane being a machine came in handy since he wasn't deterred by it.

The ground became clearer the more prolonged the fall became. Zane's senses were overheating. He had to catch Jay. He had to.

"COME ON!"

Zane let out what could only be described as a battle cry as he stretched out of his jet to catch Jay, but it was too late.

"NO!"

Jay landed on the sand with a heart-shattering splat, the sound of bones breaking a chill in the otherwise quiet desert.

Zane had no time to think as he yanked the jet to the side, his vertical complexion unable to fly up again.

He crashed his jet a few meters away from Jay's body.

Jay's bike landed a second later.

An explosion caused both the bike and the jet to go up in flames.

Cole and Lloyd looked down at the ground from up above, frozen in their spots.

Zane crawled his way up from under the debris of his burning vehicle.

Jay lay there, unmoving.

The sun shone down at them all, excruciatingly hot and unbothered.

The blood formed a crimson halo around Jay's head that was noticeable from where Cole and Lloyd were standing.

The silence deafened the heat, the vultures, the cheers of the goons currently escaping the desert. It deafened the loud buzz in Cole's ears. It deafened Lloyd's breaking heart. It deafened Zane's damaged body dragging itself towards Jay.

"My body was severely damaged because of the crash," Zane said. "But I was rebuilt. But you..."

He was at a loss for words. Zane, nindroid and Master of Fancy Words, at a loss for words. That definitely wasn't good.

Lloyd's throat clogged up. "You were lying there... There was blood... Everywhere..." A loud sob interrupted him. "And then Zane scanned you and...and...and it looked so bad for you..."

"How bad?" Jay whispered.

"Over thirty different bones were shattered all across your body, and your head received a severe concussion from when you collided with Cole's rock formation. Most of your fractures have healed over these past seven months, luckily." Zane looked down. "Cole has been blaming himself for pushing you over the edge with that bottle toss that made you fall, as well as for your head injury."

Lloyd shook his head in disbelief. "What he still doesn't get is that, yes, he caused your concussion, but had he not caused your body to glide across the air, you either would have fallen down next to your bike or it would have fallen on top of you."

Zane nodded in agreement. "The explosion of your bike would have left your survival chances in the low one-digit mark."

"And what was my mark at?" Jay asked.

"Eleven percent."

A chuckle leaving Jay's mouth confused the others, but the irony of it all was hard to believe. "Of course," he said, rubbing his face.

His eyes swept over the others' faces, his heart growing as he saw raw emotions reflected on each of their pained expressions. The thought of losing him was devastating to them. He was flattered.

But then he looked at Nya, and his growing heart burst as her silent sobs hurt him more than anything ever could. Her eyes were closed and her torso tightened and released tension in irregular patterns as her tears fell down her face and landed on her clothes like a waterfall. Her face was red. Her lips were wet from her own tears. Her fists clenched and unclenched in a gesture he knew as her trying to control her emotions. She didn't want to fully break down in front of the others.

"Oh, my heart," he cooed, uncaring if the others were there, and reached out for her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her down onto him. She sunk into him, her hands gripping his hospital gown and sheet with immaculate force.

He held her as she cried into his chest in front of the others, his face in her hair, his mouth uttering words of praise and love.

"That phone call destroyed her," Kai said, looking at his sister sadly. "It made her crumble like I've never seen before."

The sun was brightening the day, but not for Nya. She was outside and looking around the shop for signs of breaking and entering, but she couldn't find a single thing.

Kai and their parents were inside and investigating the rooms. She had explicitly told them she was fine checking the outside area on her own.

She needed to calm down anyway. Built-up anger gnawed on the back of her mind. Whoever had robbed her parents had a guaranteed death wish, and if Nya so much as found a single indication about the robber, so help them, First Spinjitzu Master, Nya was ready to—

The ringing of her phone pulled her out of her thoughts. Nya fished her device out of her pocket and glared at the screen. Lloyd's face was big on display, and the annoying sound kept coming, and Nya was tempted to decline the call and stuff her phone back into her pocket, but she knew she couldn't. The ninja had a strict "no ignoring" rule.

So she accepted the call and lifted her phone up to her ear. "Yes?"

An eerie silence greeted her.

She frowned. "Hello? Lloyd?" She glanced at the screen again to make sure the call was ongoing, which it was. "You there?"

Lloyd's recognizable intake of a breath answered her long before his meek voice whispered her name.

Nya's blood ran cold. Lloyd acting all eerie and mysterious over the phone was not a one-time occurrence, but him hesitating to talk like a normal human being meant something was wrong.

"Lloyd," she said, "what's wrong?"

"Nya." His voice came out chopped, and Nya could detect its breaking toward the end. "Where are you?"

"Kai and I are still at the shop," she answered cautiously. "Lloyd, you're scaring me. Did something happen?"

Silence. And then a broken sob.

"Lloyd! Speak now, what's going on?!"

"It's Jay!" Lloyd yelled back, then stifled another sob, his breathing loud and irregular.

Nya's world stopped spinning. "Jay?" she whispered. "What about Jay? What happened to Jay?! LLOYD, ANSWER ME!"

"He fell down, damn it!" Lloyd wheezed. "He fell down a canyon! Oh, there was so, so much blood. So much...red...blood..."

Nya listened as Lloyd gagged on the other side of the phone before his audible wretching and vomiting graced her ears, but she was suddenly weightless. Her feet were no longer on the grass in front of the blacksmiths shop. Her senses were no longer sharp but sloppy and barely there. Her eyes no longer focused on anything. Her hand was no longer holding a phone, but why was it still in the position of holding a phone against her ear?

She was suddenly on her knees. When had that happened?

Rain poured down her body in hefty buckets. But it was the middle of July and the average temperature was over thirty degrees Celsius?

"Nya?" someone called from in front of her. "Nya? Sis? Hello? Nya!"

Hands grabbed her shoulders and shook her out of her trance. The sound of Nya's sobbing now registered in her own ears. Tears were streaming down her face. Her clothes were soaked.

Her eyes, blurry and unsharp, looked at the red blob that was kneeling in front of her and trying to get through to her.

"Nya, you're causing a huge storm, Sis. What's wrong? Hey, answer me." Kai let go of her shoulders and cupped her face, his thumbs wiping under her eyes. "What's going on, Sis?"

Nya opened her mouth to answer but a sob made her swallow the words she wanted to utter. Then another sob followed, and another, and another ten more. Kai embraced his sister and tried to comfort her to the best of his abilities. The thunderous rain was quite a pain to be sitting underneath, but there had to be a reason for Nya to be upset.

"Tell me what's got you like this, Nya," Kai told her reassuringly.

"It's Jay," Nya let out, right before breaking down in harder sobs.

Kai's soothing movements stopped as he froze. "Jay? What happened to Jay?" He saw her phone lying next to them on the grass with its screen lit up, displaying Lloyd's face still on the screen. Kai picked up Nya's phone and placed it against his ear. "Hello? Lloyd? Are you there?"

It took him a moment to get a reply. "Kai," Lloyd whispered. Kai could hear the sobs coming from Lloyd's side. "It's Jay. He...um..."

"He what, Lloyd? Come on, spit it out."

"He fell down a canyon in the Sea of Sands and we couldn't catch him in time. He's unresponsive and...and...he's bleeding badly, and we are waiting for the paramedics to come get him with a helicopter because Zane's jet crashed trying to catch Jay and we can't move his body in case we damage him more. Meet us at the central hospital in Ninjago City. We should arrive there in about fifteen minutes."

Nya's body stopped shaking vigorously. Her cries stopped atoning and all that was left were her little sniffles. Jay's hand removed the hair from Nya's face to be able to get a look at her. Her red, puffy eyes glanced back at him.

Her senses came back to Nya so she quickly straightened up and wiped her face clean with her sleeves. "Sorry, guys. Didn't mean to...do that." She gestured to Jay's soaked gown.

A chorus of "it's fine, don't worry about it" came from her friends.

"That phone call was hell," Nya admitted with a laugh that she used to calm her nerves. "Never would I have thought I'd have to receive that call."

She ruffled her hair as she thought about what to say next. Then she chuckled at her misery once more. "Actually seeing you being rolled inside the hospital was worse than the call, though," she told Jay.

Kai and Nya waited in the ER of the hospital in each other's arms. Nya was holding a small cup of camomile tea in her hands to warm them up, but the tea tasted horribly and she could barely concentrate on staying hydrated anyway. Kai was giving her the comfort he thought she needed, but all she needed was Jay, who was meant to be rolled in at any moment, as far as Lloyd had told them in his phone call fifteen minutes earlier.

"They haven't checked him in from any other entrances," Maya said in a calming tone. Since Ray and Maya had been with their children when Lloyd had called, they had also dropped everything and rushed their children to the hospital.

All four of them had tear streaks on their faces and downturned lips. The news had hit them all very hard.

The Smith family sat on the stiff chairs for another few silent minutes until a commotion coming from outside the glass doors alerted them of the moment they had all dreaded to experience.

Nya jumped up when the doors were pushed open so hard they collided with the white wall, leaving visible indentations in the surface. Three orange-and-red-wearing paramedics rolled in a yellow stretcher, one of the buff men wheeling in an IV tube next to the stretcher, all three sweating profusely.

A loud scream unknown to Nya rippled through her throat and echoed off the empty walls as her eyes landed on Jay's body being wheeled past her. She escaped Kai's arms and ran after the paramedics. Her hands gripped the stretcher, her eyes going over Jay's bruised and bandaged head. Anything past his neck, which was supported by a neck brace, was hidden underneath a white sheet.

Lloyd, Zane and Cole soon rushed through the doors, meeting Kai on the way, and ran after the stretcher. Zane was holding his ripped-off left arm in his right hand, and Kai only gave it a weird look before focusing back on the important matter in front of him.

Screams and running footsteps were heard all over the place, the words indistinguishable and irate. They mostly stemmed from Nya's mouth.

"Jay! Please! Save him! Jay! Wake up!"

"They didn't let any one of us into the closed-off area in the ER." Nya wiped under her eyes as she fought back a new wave of tears. "You went into emergency surgery. Your head was...pretty messed up."

"Couldn't have been that messed up," Jay said, trying to cushion the inevitable information dump with his version of dry humor.

Kai stared at him. "Your skull was cracked, so now you have a metal plate in your head."

"Oh."

The collective buzz of the ceiling lamps made the dark and sad atmosphere darker and sadder. The five ninja were sitting in the waiting area with their heads low and their faces wet. After Lloyd and Zane had told Kai and Nya what had happened in more detail, the silence was heavier with sorrow and anger.

The anger part involving Cole only. While none of the other four, including Nya, were directing their anger towards Cole, his own brain did it for all of them combined. His thoughts were eating at him, swallowing him whole, not letting him go. His mind played tricks on him, telling him his friends hated him for causing Jay's pain, that they had hated him for a longer while and now they had a valid reason to hate him openly.

He looked at his friends while none of them looked back at him. Kai had Nya in his arms and was trying to comfort his sister while he himself was about to break down. Lloyd was staring down at the floor, his bright green eyes a shade darker, his hair messy from his hands having run through it a lot due to the stress. Zane was sitting next to Lloyd and looking down as well. His severed arm was lying on the chair next to Zane, seemingly long forgotten.

They had all been sitting like this for the past six hours.

Not a single nurse or doctor had come by to tell them about Jay, but it was certain his condition was critical.

Cole looked at Nya and let his eyes stay at her frail, vulnerable frame. She had every right to hate him, to shout at him and to take her anger out on him. She had every single right to put the blame on him and to tell him he was a horrible human being, selfish and destructive, life-ruining even.

But no such thing had been said to him when Nya had found out Cole had caused the accident. Instead, she had stared at him, then looked away.

"He thought I hated him for what happened to you," Nya told Jay, sniffing. "But that idiot didn't believe me when I told him it wasn't his fault."

Yes, Nya's first instinct had been to scream and shout at Cole, but she had used every rational ounce of her brain to conclude it hadn't been Cole's intention to harm Jay.

"When did you talk to him?" Lloyd wondered out loud. "He left the team the day after the accident."

"Well, he has left the team and disappeared, but he hasn't stopped keeping tabs on Jay." Nya smiled again for the first time since they had been telling Jay what had happened to him. "He's been sneaking in here when he thinks nobody else is inside. I haven't told you guys because he asked me not to."

The two-month mark rolled around, and Jay had still not woken up from his coma. Nya had been staying by his side ninety percent of her time. Unlike Cole, she hadn't left the team, but the others had granted her the freedom to decide whether or not she wanted to participate in missions. She did, however, have to act as reinforcement if a mission went south and the others needed dire help.

"Good morning, Jay," she said, entering the patient's room with a sad smile on her face.

Only the beeping of Jay's heart monitor greeted her back, but Nya was used to it, so she tried her best not to let it get to her. She took a seat on the armchair next to his bed and pulled a breakfast sandwich Kai had made for her out of her tote bag. As she unwrapped the foil, she realized she had forgotten to pack a drink, so she stood back up and looked at Jay.

"I'll be right back, Jay," she told him, then looked out the window to gauge the weather. "It's very sunny today. You would have loved it."

She walked around the bed and went to open the window, but it was then that she snuck a peek at the neighboring rooftop, where a certain black-wearing, mask-wearing individual was sitting at the edge, trying to make himself as small and as unnoticeable as possible.

Nya's eyes quickly darted away from Cole. There had to be a reason for why he was trying to spy into Jay's room through the window rather than using the doorway.

So Nya quickly opened the window, turned around, and left the room. She had a feeling Cole would take advantage of Jay being alone.

The coffee might have been cheap, but its taste was horrendous and the machine brewing it took longer than Nya had patience for. On her way back to Jay's room, she took her sweet time.

When she returned, she guessed Cole had left so she opened the door, but she froze upon seeing Cole still standing next to Jay, with his back turned to Nya. His head was hanging low and his sniffles indicated he was crying.

"I am so sorry, Jay. I will always be. I never meant to do it. I never meant to make you fall."

Nya stood in the doorway and let Cole have his moment. When he turned around, she realized she was intruding, so she apologized and stepped back, but he stopped her.

"No, come in."

She slowly walked inside and closed the door. Cole looked different now, a bit more disheveled. His hair was unkept and his jaw had some unshaven stubble on it. His eyes, sad and teary, glanced into hers, and Nya's heart broke a little at the sight.

"I'm sorry, Nya," he told her, his gaze a broken mirror Nya could see herself in. "I'm so, so, so sorry." He held his head in his hands and pulled on his hair, his breathing becoming more irregular the longer he stood there.

Nya shook her head and grabbed his hands and guided them out of his hair. "No, Cole. This wasn't your fault. You're beating yourself up for something you aren't the reason of." Nya let her eyes wander back to Jay's body. "If he hadn't ridden that bike, he wouldn't have been here today." She looked back at Cole, her eyes hardening to get her point across with conviction. "You threw that bottle, yes. He didn't catch it, yes. It knocked him off balance, yes. But he could have saved himself if the bike hadn't been impossible to control."

Nya could see the uncertainty in Cole's eyes. He didn't believe her, and she was sure he wouldn't have believed her even if she slapped him back to his senses with Jay's boxy heart monitor.

So instead of letting him try to justify his guilt, she stepped around him to look at Jay. "You're not coming back to the team, are you?"

Cole cleared his throat uncomfortably. "No. I just...can't..."

Sighing, Nya turned back around to Cole. "You can't face them? That's not a very brave thing for a ninja to admit."

That earned her a small smile and roll of his eyes, and that was enough for Nya to smile, too.

"Nobody is blaming you, Cole. Know that."

"I'll believe that when Jay tells me that." Cole gnawed on his lower lip as he looked for the right words to say. "Can you...maybe not tell the others I was here?"

"Sure, as long as you come here more often. I don't know if Jay is conscious, but I'm sure having his best friend here with him is a good thing for him."

"Deal."

After sharing a heartfelt hug, Cole gave Jay one last goodbye, promised him he would come back soon, and walked over to the open window. He jumped on the windowsill and turned back to Nya one last time. "Oh, and Nya? That sandwich needs more salt. Tell Kai to switch up his toast-making for once."

Before Nya could open her mouth, Cole threw himself out the window and quickly disappeared from her viewpoint.

She walked over to her sandwich sitting on top of the opened foil, the same way she had left it on the table. A big bite had been taken out of it, and a note was lying right next to it. She picked up the note and smiled.

THANK YOU, NYA

"He's an idiot for thinking I'd blame him," Jay said, sighing.

"So he's been coming here?" Kai asked his sister.

She nodded. "Pretty consistently, actually." She got off the bed and walked over to the many gift bags on the floor and table and picked up a black gift bag wrapped with a blue bow attached to it.

Jay's eyes lit up upon seeing a gift given to him by Cole. The only black bag stood out from the sea of otherwise blue and white ones.

Nya handed it to him as she sat back down on the bed. "He gave this to you about two months ago." As Jay pulled out an item wrapped in white gift wrapping, Nya explained, "He's been working at a wood-chipping factory. He told me he'd been working on this during his breaks and his time off, but I don't know what it is. He just told me to give it to you when you wake up."

Unwrapping the paper, Jay revealed his gift with a small gasp. It was a wooden dragon, carefully crafted and beautifully carved, with so many intricate details. There was no paint on it, but it didn't need any color to make it more beautiful.

"It's so pretty," Jay said, turning the handcrafted piece in his hands and inspecting it with great interest. He looked at Nya. "Can you call him? I need to have a word with him."

Nya nodded. "Can you pass me my phone, Lloyd?" she asked her friend, who nodded and grabbed her phone from the table before reaching across the bed and handing it to her.

Nya tapped on Cole's contact and waited for him to pick up, but the line went dead after the fifth ring. She frowned, looking at the time.

"He might be working," Kai speculated. "Do you guys think he'll come back home when he finds out Jay's woken up?"

"Maybe," Lloyd said, still on a fifty-fifty about the chances. "Hopefully."

"He better," Jay said, "or he might need me to slap some sense into his thick skull."

Nya shook her head in amusement before she stopped abruptly, her eyes going wide.

"What?" Jay asked her.

"Your parents," she said. "They don't know you're awake. We have to tell them." She began to type in Edna's contact into her phone to give her a call she had been wanting to receive for the past seven months, but Kai's humming stopped her.

"Aren't they back at the junkyard?" Kai turned to Jay to explain, "They were staying at the hotel next to the hospital building to be able to visit you, but I think they had to get back just this past week." He looked at his sister for confirmation.

Nya nodded her head. "Yeah, it was a commission they had to work on since they had been holding off on it for, I think, four months." She then frowned. "It'll take them at least all day to get here with their car."

"Nope," Lloyd said, standing up and stretching his tired limbs. "It'll take 'em only twenty minutes, thirty at most, because I'll go and get them." He looked at Zane. "You coming with me?"

Zane nodded, also standing up. "I want to accompany you, my friend."

Kai stood up next. "I'll get Mom and Dad, too. I'm sure they'll be thrilled their future son-in-law is back."

"Back and ready to kick some butt." Jay grinned.

Kai smirked. "Kick some butt with what? Your leg is still broken as hell."

"Huh?" Jay looked down at his legs, and when Nya helped him by pulling the sheet up to his knees, he gasped. There was a large cast wrapped around his left leg. "How am I just noticing that?"

Kai, Lloyd and Zane exited the room with booming laughter, leaving Jay and Nya alone once again.

"We should call them to let them know they're about to come here," Nya said, tapping on Edna's contact and calling her.

Jay's mother picked up after the second ring, but instead of letting it be a normal call, Edna activated the video chat function, so her face popped up with a small smile.

"Hello, dearie."

Nya kept the camera on herself as she greeted her back with a grin. "Hi, Edna! How are you?"

"I'm as well as I can be, darling. How are you?"

"Good, good. Where's Ed? I want to see both of you."

"He is outside, but I can call him. ED!"

Nya chuckled, watching as Edna stuck her head out of the trailer and called in her husband.

"I'm coming, sugarplum!" Ed called out to his wife in the distance. A moment later, his face popped up on the screen, covered in grime and grease from the project he had been working on. "I'm here, honey. What—" His eyes caught Nya's face on Edna's phone. "Oh, hello, sweetheart."

"Hey, Ed!"

"Have you got any updates on our boy?" he asked Nya, who nodded.

"Actually, I do. Lloyd and Zane are on their way to pick you up, so I called you two to tell you to start packing again."

Edna's eyes immediately turned sad again. "Why? Has he gotten worse?"

"Well..." Nya slowly positioned herself to the side so that Jay's face and torso could fit into the frame of her phone. She propped herself up on her elbow.

Nya smiled happily, but Ed and Edna's gasps made her look at what was going on. She turned her face to Jay, whose eyes were closed.

And his tongue was sticking out to the side.

"Doing this to your own parents? Really?" Nya asked him, then turned back to his parents while shaking her head. "He's always been one for the dramatics."

"You love me, really," Jay quipped back, opening his eyes and grinning at Nya before letting his eyes slide back to the phone screen. "Good day! How's everyone doing?"

The sound of crying answered his question.

Jay quickly sobered up, his eyes softening. "Don't cry, Ma. See? I'm fine! Well, my leg's not, but otherwise I'm good!"

"You're awake?" Edna whispered.

"When?" Ed asked, also crying his eyes out.

Nya racked her brain to give them an estimated timeline. "About thirty minutes ago? Forty? Something like that."

A notification slid down Nya's screen. It was a text message from Lloyd saying they would arrive at Jay's parents' in less than ten minutes.

"Listen, I know you want to talk to Jay now that he's back, and I fully get it, but Lloyd and Zane are about to pick you up and I'm sure you want to pack a few things," Nya explained politely. "You'll be here faster than you know, and then you can bombard your son with all the hugs and kisses you want."

"Of course," Edna said, wiping her eyes dry with a tissue. "We will be there. We love you Jay. You too, Nya."

"Love you too, Ma. Love you, Pa. See you!" Jay said.

Nya hung up with a grin that cut her face in half. She couldn't shake it off, and truth be told, she didn't want to. She was euphoric.

"Your parents are so amazing," Nya told him, falling back next to him as her propped arm gave out. A yawn left her mouth, her face snuggling into his neck.

"How much sleep did you have last night?" Jay asked her as he lifted the white sheet and let his girlfriend cling to him properly.

"Not enough."

Although Nya wanted to fall asleep right then and there, she knew her mother would be disappointed if Nya didn't tell her and Ray Jay had woken up, so Nya pressed on her mother's contact and waited as the phone beeped.

Maya picked up the phone right away. "Hello, Nya. How's Jay?"

Nya laughed, amazed at how the first question coming out of her mother's mouth was about her Yin.

"Hi, Mom," Nya said, keeping the phone on herself for added suspense. "I'm good, thank you for asking me how I am."

Maya rolled her eyes at her daughter's sarcasm with a smile. "Sorry, sorry. You know how I get."

"Where's Dad?"

"Right here," Ray answered as he came into frame. "Hey, darling."

"Hi!" Nya smiled. "So, I'm guessing both of you are wondering about Jay."

Ray and Maya nodded.

Smiling, Nya angled the phone so that both she and Jay were in clear view of her parents. Maya and Ray gasped, and when Nya looked at Jay, she found him with his eyes closed and his tongue sticking out.

"Now you're doing this to my parents?" She laughed loudly, tilting her head back.

Jay couldn't keep his laughter in for any longer so he opened his eyes and looked at the screen. "I'm not dead yet!"

Maya's eyes watered, her hand on her mouth. Ray's mouth formed into a large grin.

"Kai is on his way to pick you two up," Nya told her parents. Then she yawned again. "I'm gonna hang up now. Do you have anything you want to say before you'll be here in twenty minutes?"

Maya could only reply with incoherent words so Ray smiled at Jay. "We are both beyond happy to see you have woken up, son. We've been waiting for this day for such a long time."

Jay smiled back at him. "I'm glad to be back."

After bidding them goodbye, Nya hung up the phone and let it flop on the mattress without a care in the world. Then she snuggled up closer against Jay's side, her eyes closing again.

"We're not gonna be alone together in a few minutes, my love," Jay said, combing his hand through Nya's thick hair and gently massaging her scalp. She felt like putty in his hands, relishing in the way he made her feel after a long while of no love she had been able to receive.

"I don't care," she answered. "I've got you back. That's all that matters."

That really was all that Nya could think about for the moment. She thought about every time she had cried her eyes out, about the countless hours she had stayed awake solely because she hadn't wanted to miss Jay waking up if he had woken up in the middle of the night.

She thought back to the day she had broken the news to Jay's parents, how they had broken down on the floor of their trailer, how they had clung to her like she had been the last relic left of Jay's.

She thought about the future that awaited the couple. Jay sure as day couldn't get back to his duties seeing how he still had a long journey of recovery in front of him, and Nya was not ready to leave him alone just yet.

Cole was also still a sore subject to think about. His presence was essential for both Jay and Cole's well-being. Nya hoped Cole would reach out to her soon so that she could tell him about the news.

Nya embraced Jay to her fullest capacity and was more than happy to be embraced back with just as much force.

The last time she had embraced him this way, he had not reciprocated her hug.

"Jay, please! You have to wake up now!"

Her sniffles and cries had gone unnoticed.

"You can't leave me! Not like this. Not ever."

Her mind had not been able to rest.

"You can't die."

But now that she was safe and secure in his arms, back in her favorite place, she knew a guy like Jay was too persistent and strong-willed to die.

A/N:🧍‍♀️Oh, so you thought this was going to be a fluffy oneshot?

If you couldn't guess already, I kinda lied in my first author's note. This is not a short oneshot. It's actually my longest with close to 18500 words. Oops.

And don't think I forgot about your digital cookie 🍪 for making it to the end of this oneshot. Because I'm feeling generous today, I'll let you have two digital cookies 🍪 🍪.

Was this inspired by Happy Death Day? At some point, yes.

Someone, take away my phone, because tell me why I'm pumping out so many thousands of words for a random fandom on the internet when I could have just written an actual book 😭! Just kidding, I love writing my silly little fanfics.