This fic is quite OOC and not canon compliant. If anyone on this site is reading this, comments and criticism is always appreciated :D
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Jay's eyes fluttered open. The winter sun was peeking through his blinds and left a ray stranded on the curves of his pale face. The blue ninja groaned and rubbed his eye with the palm of his hand. It wasn't until he fully opened his eyes to observe his surroundings that he found Nya sprawled on top of him, fast asleep.
He bit back his surprise and lay still. If he moved he would probably wake her up. Instead, he hesitantly decided to play with a piece of her hair and process the dream he just had and ignore that the girl who he let die was snuggled up to him as if it never happened.
He had dreamt. It wasn't necessarily a nightmare. It wasn't a memory either; not one that he could remember. He pondered his dream and tried to collect his thoughts. He did dislocate his arm, he did scrub the ship while upside down and he did get pushed into a cramped cell. His thoughts were concerns he did have, but he wasn't sure if the conversation he had with Clancee actually happened. He couldn't recall the conversation he had with the serpent, either.
He frowned and tried to pinpoint exactly where that memory came from. That was his first day on the Misfortune's Keep. Those were bits and pieces of memory stitched together. That was before everything got undoubtedly worse.
Jay pinched the bride of his nose tightly. Now was not the time to think about it. He got up and made sure that Nya was still asleep. To his surprise, she was still out by the time he was able to move her off of him.
He got up and cracked his back and sighed as the pressure in his back subdued. He returned to his pattern of pacing back and forth in front of his bed in thought. He walked to the one side, turned around on his heel and walked back to the other side mindlessly just to repeat the same steps again and again. He tried to think of anything else than the damn Misfortune's Keep and Nadakhan. Fucking Nadakhan. Anything besides feeling ill because HE was why Nya died. He made a tight fist until his knuckles turned white and his nails penetrated a thin layer of skin. He felt numb and he just couldn't stop thinking about it.
The hair on his neck stood up and his stomach dropped when he heard a swishing noise behind him. He jerked and spun around to see that it was just Nya, who was fast asleep. She just moved in her sleep. He exhaled a sigh of relief. He was too on edge as of recent. He was more easily startled than his ninja self usually was.
He sneaked back to his bed to grab his phone, which was laying on his bedside table to check the time. Seven in the morning. It was seven in the morning and he actually slept for more than three hours during the night for once. This was good, he reassured himself. Everyone would be getting breakfast in an hour.
Oh right, breakfast. He promised Lloyd he would come to breakfast. Usually, Jay would lie in bed all day distracting himself with hour-long youtube documentaries containing useless information about FSM knows what. He tried catching up on the sleep he was missing. Hours blurred together and he would have no concept of time until Cole would come and see him every afternoon after training.
Cole was a good friend, Jay realised. He has to appreciate his friend more. Cole didn't ask him why exactly he stopped coming to training or why he was always tired but rather, offered conversation. They would talk and Jay would ramble on about the documentaries he would watch and Cole would listen.
Jay decided to take a shower. He convinced himself that he was coping well and that he would go back to his normal routine soon. He was just dealing with emotions. Guilt, shame, general anxiety. He was fine. However, he found himself starting to struggle to do look after himself. Showering and making himself look presentable felt more challenging. Getting out of bed was difficult. This made him second guess how fine he actually was.
He grabbed a spare pair of clothes, entered his bathroom and closed the door behind him after throwing Nya one last glance to make sure that she wasn't in any danger. He frowned. Why would she be? She was safe, right?
The small bathroom was attached to his room. The only room upstairs was smaller than the other, including the bathroom. Smaller spaces felt fine. It felt a lot like what life was like in The Sands.
For the first time in a while, he caught a glance of his face in a mirror. He looked quite wan and skinny. He was starting to look like what he did back then, albeit not as dead-looking and terribly wounded. The bags under his eyes did not hide his exhaustion and his hair sticking to his forehead made him look more grungy. A shower was long overdue.
His eye caught something on his left cheek. He leaned on the cold counter to look closer in the mirror. There was a tiny scar under his eye on his left cheek. He recalled that the scar was from the injury to his eye. His eye was fine, however. It felt fine, but the scar he did not notice before sat on his face in the shape of a tiny, white squiggle or lightning bolt shape.
He remembered the injury as being quite severe. His left eye was practically useless and he had been certain that in the end, he probably would end up with only one left rather than two. His wish fixed it. His eye was fine. He was fine, Nya was fine. The image of Nya's corpse made him pinch the bridge of his nose again. He wanted to throw up.
He spent 20 minutes in the shower, not minding the warm water caressing his skin at all. The month of June was always terribly cold and being under warm water was one of the only things he enjoyed about the winter in Ninjago City. After a 20 minute long shower, stepping out of the shower and his feet touching the cold tiles made him want to crawl back into the warmth of the water.
He got dressed in loungewear and ruffled his hair in a towel to attempt to dry it more. It was already taking on its natural form of delicate dark auburn curls. Fuck it. He didn't have the energy to even attempt to straighten it. There was too much on his mind to care about what his hair looked like.
Curly hair and light eyes. Other than one of his eyes being brown and the other blue, one could tell he was from the Sea of Sands. He finally thought of his adoption for the first time since the timeline reversed and he kept himself from crying. He pushed it back into the crevices and corners of his mind. He didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to wonder about it and lead his mind into a rabbit hole of questions that will probably stay unanswered.
He stepped out of the bathroom without giving himself a second inspection in the fogged-up mirror. He closed the door behind him with a soft click.
"Jay?"
His head shot up to see Nya sitting upright, rubbing her eyes. Her hair, which was already touching her shoulders - long compared to how she usually kept her hair - resembled a bird's nest. If Jay wasn't slightly startled, he would probably smile at her. He would smile at her sweet, soft face and kind smile.
"Sorry. Did I, uh, wake you?"
She nodded. "Don't worry though. Are you okay?"
He nodded. "Just took a shower."
"Oh."
Silence. And then she smiled.
"Your hair. I didn't know your hair was curly. Does it stay that way when it's dry?"
Jay felt his cheeks heat up and his hands shot up to attempt to flatten his hair.
"N-No, I mean yes. I usually straighten it. It's actually curly." He stuttered. He cringed at the way he was trying to hide his natural hair.
"I like it," Nya smiled, "It looks good on you."
Jay felt himself smile.
"Really?"
"Of course."
"I guess I just wanted to be like everyone else. Not a lot of people in the city have hair like mine. Back home in the Sands, it's the other way around."
It felt as if every time they spoke, it was awkward. There was too much between them. Too many memories and too many words that needed to be spoken that neither knew where to begin. Jay played with the hem of his hoodie, rolling it between his thumb and index finger.
"Also about last night," She started, "I'm sorry for keeping the scar from you. If I had known..." She motioned her arms toward him.
Jay blinked and recalled the revelations from the previous night, or morning, more precisely. Oh right, the scar from the venom. The venom he could have prevented from killing her if he just hadn't made the wishes in the first place. FSM, he really fucked up, didn't he? His jaw clenched slightly.
"It's, uh, fine! I'm sorry for not telling you either. I didn't want you to worry or anything. I didn't really want to acknowledge it. Everything is just- my head is everywhere. Yeah."
Awkward silence, again. FSM, would they ever be able to have a full, proper conversation? He wanted everything to go back to normal, even if that meant that she would yell at him a lot.
Nya patted the space next to her on the bed. Jay joined her in another ceiling staring session. Jay had been counting the seemingly ancient wooden panels of the ceiling. He reached 14 vertical panels before Nya spoke.
"You matter, Jay," She spoke up, "You don't need to isolate yourself to keep from what you think is inconveniencing me or anyone, for that matter. You went through a lot. You're allowed to talk to me about anything. I encourage you to because I care about you. I trust you, and I hope that you can trust me too."
Jay swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded. He wanted to tell her how alone he felt while being surrounded by his family, how numb he felt, how tired he was. How he just didn't understand how she was next to him right now, how she stays with him through the nights and even speaks (albeit awkwardly) to him after what he had done to her. She is supposed to hate him. Why isn't she hating him?
He organised his thoughts as best he could and tried to save face. "Thank you. And of course, I trust you. I'm proud of you for telling me. I know it's not easy for you to open up like that." He meant every word. He did trust her and he was proud of her.
Awkward silence, yet again.
"I rarely hear that from people. Being proud of me, I mean."
He smiled and turned his head to look at her. "I mean it, y'know."
She smiled. "Thank you. For comforting me and for all those lovely things you told me last night."
Jay wanted to get Cole to open the earth up to swallow him whole.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
She merely smirked and nudged his shoulder. "I'm going to go take a shower." She told him and got up to leave.
"I'll see you at breakfast?"
she turned around and her eyes lit up.
"You're coming to breakfast?"
He nodded. "I'll see you at breakfast."
She froze for a moment and stared out into the hall. "You're the best you, y'know."
After she left, he was once again alone and left isolated with his thoughts to keep him company. Thoughts of the stupid djinn and Nya. He was too sure that that HAD to be a reference to their disaster of a date when they were 14. It had to be. Or was he reading too much into it?
He tried to understand why she was still choosing to be around him. He wanted to scream because they were in a strange area where conversations were mostly laced with awkwardness. They were always in each other's company, yet it was merely a situation of feeling safe that she was safe and vice versa. He did not know why she would willingly be around him after everything. There were things about Nya he would never understand, and this was one of them.
)
At twenty to eight, the Temple of Airjitzu was mostly quiet with the only sounds being the creaks of the ancient building and birds chirping outside. It being a Saturday meant that everyone was sleeping in until breakfast. The ninja still lived an organised life, even on the weekends when everyone had free time. Breakfast at eight, debriefing the events of the week with free time thereafter. Having a schedule, even during weekends, gave the older teens a sense of order when there wasn't a threat that needed stopping.
Jay passed the closed rooms of his teammates, hearing Nya's shower when he passed her room. Some of the doors were already customised to the occupants' own designs. Zane's simplistic white door, Cole's very impressive impressionistic landscape he spent hours on, Nya's simple silver phoenix sitting in the middle of her door, Kai's half-assed patchy red door with his name written on it in white paint and Jay's mess of photos of his friends and comic pages collaged together represented the team perfectly.
The Day of The Departed took place over the weekend of the week that the 'roof incident' happened. The team moved in a few days later and settled in quite quickly. As Cole got used to being a human again (a lot of incidents of walking into solid objects were involved) Jay got used to his state of being, his mind and body.
Jay could smell the food from the kitchen already. He slipped into the kitchen to find that Zane was the one cooking. Cole and Lloyd were already seated next to each other. They were in a deep discussion and Jay hoped that Lloyd wasn't telling Cole anything he shouldn't.
Lloyd lifted his head when he heard Jay enter the kitchen. He smiled and his serious expression fell.
"You came."
Jay smiled back. "I'm a man of my word."
Cole shot Jay a smile as he tied his dreads into a bun. "Come here, Zaptrap!" Cole said and got up. He embraced Jay tightly and hugged him back. It wasn't until Jay was lifted off the ground that he started tapping on Cole's shoulder.
"Cole! Let go!" He muffled into Cole's shoulder.
"You're too used to being human again." Jay laughed as Cole put him down.
Cole rolled his eyes playfully. "At least I have this epic scar. You have your little one on your eyebrow, but mine is green! Isn't that cool."
Jay smiled slightly. If only he could see his scars as 'epic'. "Don't flatter yourself, Bolderbrain."
Breakfast went as well as it usually would. Compliments about his hair and questions about how he was feeling were passed around as the rest of the team seated themselves around the table, to which Jay replied that he was feeling better. Nya sat next to him, which was a surprise. Seating arrangements changed a bit since he stopped joining the team for meals, it seemed.
The usual idle talk and the tinkling of his against plates filled the room. Jay was enjoying eating with his family again. He missed their company and even missed being cramped up together, even though there was much more space in Yang's Temple. He smiled to himself, even though he felt left out. There were references to past conversations he wasn't a part of that he didn't understand. He had wrapped himself up in a cocoon for two weeks and had missed so much.
Cole told them that he was going to see his Dad on Sunday and asked Jay to tag along. Surprisingly, Jay agreed to leave his bedroom for the second time in 12 hours. Lou did scare him quite a bit, but Jay didn't mind spending time with his friend. Cole was always good fun. Maybe they would go get ice cream at the nice shop Cole took him to when they first visited his dad.
"So, Jay, what's up with you? You were in your room for an awfully long time? You good?" Kai asked after a moment of silence.
The eggs with furikake Jay was eating started to taste bland on his tongue. Jay didn't meet Kai's eyes and opted to pick at his breakfast as he thought up a reply.
"Do you need me to check your vitals, Jay? I know you declined and I will take a look if you consent. I would recommend it." Zane responded.
"No, it's fine." He replied, looking down. He could see Nya's hand gripping his left under the table. He tried to wrap his head around the possibility of this being friendly or not. He was not sure but chose to ignore it.
Jay swallowed and looked up and met Lloyd's eyes. He felt Lloyd nudge his leg as he sat across from him and nudged to his right, where Kai was sitting. Right, he was being asked a question. He could feel Nya's stare from next to him and Zane on his right.
His mind swam and he could tell that he was starting to sweat. Everyone was looking at him as if he was a helpless child.
"There is something." He finally said.
He could feel Nya stare into the side of his head. He turned his head to look at her. She furrowed her eyebrows. He gave her a nod. 'Trust me'.
"You can always tell us, Jay," Cole spoke up.
"I'm adopted." He blurted, as it was the only thing on his mind.
He could hear audible gasps and Nya nudged his arm with her shoulder.
He regretted his words instantly. He did not lie. It was the truth and it had been on his mind. He was going to have to explain that to his team in any case once the letter arrived.
For the first time since he found out, the idea got to him. He just had to say it out loud and come to the realisation that he was truly adopted. His parents didn't want him and he was left in the middle of the desert. Why did no one want him? Ed and Edna loved him and he was not even their blood.
"I'm sorry, Jay. Are you okay?" Kai asked, or stuttered. No one knew what to say.
Jay nodded and got up. He was going to lose it. He was going to lose it in front of everyone.
"Excuse me," he left for the door, "thank you for the food, Zane."
Jay practically ran up to his room and left a speechless table behind. He shut his door behind him and for the first time since learning about his parentage, he slid down his door and sobbed on the floor.