Chapter Text
Kai lay sprawled on the couch, laughing as Zane died yet another stupid death on the video game despite having outlived them all. Kai took a second to look around the room, nostalgia hitting him like a truck like that song Cole used to obsess over.
Sitting on one side of him was Cole, playfully shoving an amused Zane. On his other side was Jay. Jay . Kai’s head still reeled every time he saw him, knowing that this man, memories and goodness or not, was his Jay. The real Jay. Not a hallucination or a fucked up dream but really Jay .
It had been like this for every member of his family he had reunited with. He had to remind himself that they were real, that he wasn’t in danger anymore, even though he sometimes still couldn’t believe he had so immediately gotten back what he had been searching for for years. He felt so weak knowing that only two months spent in that dratted place had changed him forever, made him fear. But for a long time his fear of going through that again was underweighed by the fear that someone he loved was going through the same, or worse. The merge and the land of monsters had taught him that no matter what unspeakable horror he had witnessed, there was always worse.
And so after he ensured Lloyd’s safety in the monastery, he took off immediately to find the others. Two years wasted on searching the merged lands when they themselves had come to him within the span of a few months.
Kai remembered being in the Craigling village the first time, how Nya had found him and fought alongside him. The day before their battle with the dragons they spent a long time enjoying each other’s company, reminiscing on once-lost memories, and exclaiming “I cannot believe you’re actually here,” every few moments. Kai had been filled with so much love and relief, unable to let go of Nya when the horrible thought occurred to him that maybe this was all a fever dream. Maybe he was still there, the place finally driven him enough insane to dream up hallucinations of love. The thought had filled him with so much nausea that he had abruptly left the room and dry-gagged at the wall on the outside of the fortress, only to be quickly followed by his concerned sister. They spent a long time underneath that purple sky, Nya comforting him and trying to find out what went wrong and Kai dodging every attempt by violently shaking his head. Eventually Nya had given up with a long sigh, skidding down the wall until she was sitting beside Kai, inviting a long silence she broke herself-
“I get it. I think everyone has things about the merge they’d rather not talk about.”
And then it was Kai’s turn to be the helicopter sibling, pestering her.
“Wait- what do you mean by that? Are you okay?”
Nya slapped his shoulder playfully. “What don’t you get by ‘rather not talk about,’ douchebag?”
Eyes widening at the look of terror on Kai’s face she lowered her gaze and gently added, “but yeah, I’m fine now.”
“Please tell me. You know I care.”
“You tell me first then.”
Kai grunted exasperatly. “It feels so stupid. We’d come such a long way before the merge. We’d finally mastered communication. I thought everything was finally gonna settle down, that things would be perfect forever.” He laughed painfully. “And now we can’t even bring ourselves to talk to each other about what we’ve been through.”
Nya frowned, dropping her head onto Kai’s shoulder.
“I know. But that doesn’t mean we love each other less. In fact, I think I love you more.” She nudged him.
“Give it time Kai. I think we both need it to heal, atleast a little bit.”
Kai was reminded of her words as he looked at Jay now, the boy he once knew like an open book, changed so much. Maybe her words all those months ago lingered, and that’s why he didn’t push Jay to believe them or welcome them immidieatly, but Nya’s lecture the previous day had worked too. Kai bent down to the breakfast the boys had spread lazily on the living room table, casually grabbing a croissant and stuffing his mouth with how much ever of it as he could. He turned and noticed Jay staring at him so he pointed the remanents of the thing at him. “Hungry?”
Jay looked mildly disgusted, “uh, I’ll just take a fresh one.”
“Oh don’t worry,” Kai swallowed and wolfed the last piece of it down. “This one’s all mine. So, what do you think of our display.” He gestured vaguely to the ninjas’ video game cupboard of fame, noting Jays reaction. His mouth upturned slightly, face shifting to the side as his hair moved along with it. “Impressive. Better than most I’ve seen.”
“Well yeah, you built like half of it.” Kai threw in blindly, cursing himself with the bout of silence following his sentence. He changed the topic.
“Where’d you get that shirt?”
Jay blushed slightly at that. Kai smiled to himself, suspecting the answer. “Oh, Nya gave it to me, yesterday night. Actually, do you have more? I need to wash my suit.”
“Ask Nya.” Kai said immediately, smiling harder as Jays cheeks turned impossibly pink. “How’s the leg?”
“Better, I think. so… do you usually breakfast with video games?”
“Not really, but Lloyd isn’t here so we just take advantage of that.”
A small chuckle came from Cole, quiet before as he and Zane entered yet another game.
Jay looked confused, “Wait, but isn’t he your master?”
“I guess.. technically?”
“Please,” Cole said. “Lloyd is a great leader, but he’s also our younger brother who we’re allowed to ignore.”
“Not to mention the fact that we weren’t very good at taking orders from Master Wu in the first place.”
Kai laughed at that. “Yeah, we just ignored him and did what we liked and then whined about it when he pulled the plug.”
“Do you mean pulled the plug metaphorically?” Jay asked.
“No,” Kai replied. “I mean he literally used the pull the TV plug.”
Jay looked like he didn’t quite know what to say to that, and luckily he didn’t have to, as the door swung open and Nya walked in, hair tied up, jeans, and a shirt that was definitely Jay’s before. Jay looked up at her, and it seemed like he forgot about everything else as he took her in.
As much as Kai liked to pretend to be disgusted by Nya and Jay in the past, he had always admired what they had, the way the loved each other. He thought he had found that for himself in Skylor, but his ass had gone and ruined that relationship so many times that Kai was genuinely surprised when she said yes shortly after the final battle with the overlord. He was so happy to finally be in a good place with her, but of course the merge had to go fuck that up too.
He looked at his sister now, who was staring intensely at Jay.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hi.” He replied.
Zane and Cole had even paused their game to watch the awkward interaction.
“I’m here to save you. Come along.”
“Okay-“ Jay stammered, getting up surprisingly fast to follow Nya into the hallway.
Kai was left to stare at the pair as they waked out, talking in low voices.
Cole turned back to his video game.
“Well,” he said blankly. “I wonder how that’s gonna go.”
“Indulge me,” Jay said, as he and Nya took their seats at the empty dining table, the other ninja either eating what they could on the couch or taking their breakfast to the courtyard.
“What’s the deal with all this ninja business? Did all of you just spontaneously wake up one day and decide to do good deeds for nothing?”
Nya chuckled as she served herself some eggs.
“Not exactly. And I wasn’t always a ninja.”
“I doubt anyone here was.”
“Well yeah, but I became a ninja way after everyone else.”
Jay was confused, “What about the kids?”
Nya exhaled sharply. “This is gonna take a bit, so be patient.”
For some reason, Jay found himself looking forward to the long explanation Nya was about to give him. And not just because he liked the way she talked, liked watching her without having to make up an excuse, but because he truly wanted to know more about the ninja. He told himself that it was only to get an assessment of his situation here, to make plans and get all the intel he could, but he had another, emotional factor in the business.
“So before the merge, we were eight in the monastery. You, me, Kai, Lloyd, Cole and Zane, Master Wu and Pixal. We’d been living together for so long that we had become our own close knit family. At first, only you, Kai, Cole and Zane were ninja, elemental masters. Then we found out that Lloyd was the prophesied green ninja, destined to fight the root of evil. For a few years it was just you guys, fighting the battles all because you had elemental powers. That did not sit well with me. For a while I was a samurai, in a suit I built myself, defending ninjago alongside all of you. Then Master Wu told me that I was the wielder of water, and so I became a ninja as well. We went through so many fights, villains and wrongdoers, and when Lloyd had taken down the overlord for the third time, we thought we were finally done. Only a year later, the merge happened.”
Nya looked a little sad, the way something did when they lost something they’d finally gotten back.
“It took us three years to find each other again. Around the same time, Lloyd took in the kids. Cole ended up in the land of lost things after the merge, and he stayed there to protect the finders. Lloyd never left the monastery, and Pixal and Zane were found in weird capsules, unconscious for the entirety of our separation. Kai’s never opened up about the merge, but I have a feeling that’s he’s been through much more than he lets on.”
“What about you?” Jay asked, looking up at her as she glanced at him.
“Huh?”
“What happened to you after the merge, Nya?”
He still couldn’t wrap his head about how much he cared for her, despite having no memory of her at all. And he’d tried to remember. He had. He didn’t know why he had asked the question. He already knew, knew a bit of it anyway, from reading her letter so many times that he had fallen asleep to it.
“I… don’t like to talk about it either.”
She looked down, and her eyes sank as a look of sudden sadness flashed through her features. It was something he wouldn’t have caught on if he wasn’t looking so intently, as though it was not possible to take his eyes off of her.
He had been hoping for a different answer, but he did not dare push her further. Seeing her sad made his chest hurt, something in him screaming to make sure she wasn’t.
He changed the topic.
“Weren’t you angry at your master? For not telling you about your powers sooner?”
Her eyes widened, as if she hadn’t been excepting him to catch on to that.
“I was, actually. But I couldn’t be. I couldn’t even take time to process the news.”
“Why?”
She shrugged as her expression changed.
“The world was at stake. And as it has been for the past nine years of my life, the responsibility fell on the shoulders of me or the ones I loved.” She hesitated, “Time seems to move so fast when we have it, doesn’t it? And so slow when we are lost, searching for things with desperate hope.”
She looked wistful as she spoke, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Jay got the feeling that she didn’t want him to respond in that last part. But he couldn’t keep his big mouth shut.
“How is time moving now? Slow, or fast?”
Nya turned to him fully, mouth slightly ajar but not responding. They stayed that way for a while, searching each others’ eyes until Jay finally gave in and went back to slowly munching on his food.
Nya followed, and for a few minutes they ate in not-awkward-but-not-exactly-good silence, until Jay heard Nya exhale shakily.
He looked to her in concern, not saying anything. She exhaled again, the sound followed by the clattering of her spoon to the floor as she frantically moved her hand to wipe away at a tear.
“Nya?” He asked, worried but not knowing what to do.
“I’m sorry. Just- just give me a second.” His heart panged at her words, wanted to comfort her but knowing it wasn’t his place. He just sat there in a hopeless desperation, not knowing what to say or do.
It was weird how he cared about these people. Her especially. If this was actually his home once upon a time, it would make a lot of sense. It was like he felt something for the people here, like he had all the emotions but not the memories. It was a sinking feeling.
He had to remind himself that however much he had deluded himself, he didn’t belong here. Maybe he did once, but not anymore. He didn’t quite fit in, and the thought of that hurt a lot more than he expected.
More than anything, he couldn’t bring himself to trust them. Not after everything he’d been through, and not after the only thing he could remember from his previous life was a singular sentence telling him not to trust. If that was the only thing he remembered, it had to be pretty important.
Maybe that was why he wasn’t rushing to comfort Nya, even though he really wanted to. He wanted to take her in his arms and dry her tears himself, hold her until she felt alright, but he couldn’t. Not with everything holding him back.
“Jay?” She asked quietly, not at all looking directly into his eyes.
“Yeah?” He replied just as slowly, not wanting to upset her further.
“I know we probably mean nothing to you. I know I probably mean nothing to you. But please, please make an effort? Consider that just maybe we’re not lying to you. It means so much to everyone. So much to me.”
Jay didn’t know what drove him in that moment, except that it broke him to hear her talk like that, the pain and hurt so deeply ingrained into her shaking voice. He couldn’t leave her like that. She needed to be fine. He needed to make sure she was fine.
“Alright. Alright- I’ll put in the effort. I’m sorry if I didn’t before. I’ll try, I swear.”
He hesitantly put a hand on her shoulder, and left it there as she finally looked him in the eye.
Her have her a small smile, and she gave him a soft one back. The weight on his heart lifted a little at that. That he had made her smile.
He scolded himself for a bit, but he couldn’t help but ignore that rationality in his mind, the same one which had realised that he didn’t trust these people. But for some reason, he didn’t want to hurt them either. Didn’t want to be the reason they were sad.
It was stupid and probably going to end horribly for him, he knew, but he decided to stick around for a while.