Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The boy standing on the ledge below her couldn’t speak. He was struggling to get the words to leave his throat, coughing between attempts until the blonde to his right voiced the question for him, asking what she thought of the color blue. When Nya smiled down at him, telling him that it was her favorite color, Jay pumped his fist triumphantly. In an overwhelming flash peppered with varying shades of blue, Nya saw the rest of her life laid out for her. 

A kiss on the cheek in an amusement park. A boy flickering with piercing electric blue light, lightning ricocheting off of him.

The same boy, his eyes sparkling through the hood pulled over his face, reaching out his hand for her on the rooftop. A flicker of hesitation, of separation. A moment where she saw him chained to a ship, a moment where she saw herself collapsing in his arms, sickly green sludge coating her wedding dress. The feeling of his hand in hers as they flew up to the rooftop, encapsulated in a royal blue cloud of power. 

A cerulean dragon they perched on, his arms wrapped around her waist as they flew through the clouds. Electricity and water mixing to create rather than destroy, their powers coming together in azure light against the baby blue sky. 

The mention of a time long gone, forgotten by their friends. The boy looking across the team to smile at her. Blue eyes meeting brown, crinkling around the edges. 

Slamming into his arms after months of separation. Clutching his hair as thankful tears burst from her eyes, blue waves crashing down her face. 

The boy kneeling in front of her, holding out a pendant, not seeming to care about the battle brewing around them. Her heart nearly bursting with love as she agreed, leaping into his cobalt blue embrace. 

Catching him as he fell through the sky, spinning toward the sand. Holding him above the lava by a chain that held them together. The three words slipping easily off his tongue, her heart beating with the same feeling she couldn’t yet verbalize. 

Clutching his sparkling periwinkle suit as they spun around the dance floor, leaping and dipping each other. Jumping into his arms, grinning down at him as they surpassed their competitors, the entire room glowing true blue. 

Kneeling by his bedside as water overtook his lungs. Feeling powerless as she couldn’t extract it, couldn’t use her element to save the only man she had ever loved. Looking out toward the sky, knowing what she had to do. Kissing him goodbye before climbing to the rooftop, looking back for long enough to mouth the words that her vocal cords could never say, before leaping into the water, letting it consume her. 

Her favorite color leaking from his eyes as he reached for her hand, his own passing through her watery one. Focusing all of her attention for long enough to kiss him on the cheek, glowing ocean blue as he had their first time, before leaping into the sea, ignoring how he called out for her to come back, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to leave him behind again if she did. She had saved him, had extracted the turquoise sea from his lungs. It was a part of her now. It didn’t matter how empty, how blue she felt in his absence. She did what had to be done. 

A dance. A storm. A lifetime in the six years without him. A fight where his bright blue eyes turned to red and he spit venom at her as he left. 

Then, something else. An older version of the boy she loved standing in a cobalt suit, an eyepatch pulled over one eye, gray peppering his auburn curls. She stood beside him, wrapping an arm around his middle with a smile, lines etched into her face from the years by his side, beaming at the thought of an aquamarine lifetime together. 

Nya blinked, shaking her head slightly as she looked back down at Jay, who was grinning lazily back at her. His face was round, boyish and clean. The same dusting of freckles that she had seen under the wrinkled version of his face cascaded across the bridge of his nose, reaching up to his cheeks. Nya beamed back at him, her eyes twinkling, her heart squeezing as she thought about the powder blue future she had seen. 

She couldn’t wait. 

Chapter Text

Jay’s hands were shaking, static electricity wrapping around his fingertips. 

“We don’t have to, you know,” Nya whispered, leaning into Jay’s shoulder. He shifted slightly to look over at her, his eyes wide. “If you’re nervous, that’s okay.”

“What?” Jay scoffed, his voice pitched upward with clear-cut anxiety. Nya took his hand, giggling at the quick shockwave that popped along her skin as she ran her thumb along the back of it. “I’m not nervous. It’s just a ride.” It was a clear lie.

The team had a rare day off. Garmadon seemed to have grown bored of trying to destroy Ninjago city after he was swallowed by Meowthra, offering the ninja an uncommon moment of peace. They had decided to do a group outing to the MegaMonster Amusement Park on the edge of the city. Everyone had been excited about it except for Jay. 

He would never admit it to the rest of the team, knowing how bad Cole and Kai’s teasing could get, but he was terrified of roller coasters. He didn’t trust that humans should be going that fast just for a trivial few minutes. He had never been able to see the fun in it. If he was going to fly around, it was going to be while in the safety of his mech, in service of saving the city. 

The whole day, Jay had been pulsing with anxiety. Not only because of his fear of the rides his friends were eager to go on, but also because sneaking away from the group served as his and Nya’s first date. 

He had tried to ask her out before, but he hadn’t been able to muster up the courage. She was impossibly cool, what with her leather jacket, her motorcycle that she rode through the school without consequence, and her mechanic skills. Not to mention her skills on the battlefield, the way that water obeyed her command in order to defeat a bad guy. On more than one occasion, Jay had found himself in harm’s way because he was watching Nya during a fight, leading to her hurling herself across the battlefield to save him. At first, he thought it was embarrassing, then, it made him like her even more. Not that she would ever feel the same way about him. 

Then, there was the time Kai had told her that perfume was the key to Nya’s heart, only for her to be allergic to the one that her brother had helped Jay pick out. 

So, when Jay finally gotten the nerve to ask Nya on a date, he was shocked when she blushed and said yes. They were in front of their school with dozens of their classmates swirling around them. Jay had just caught up with Nya as she climbed on her motorcycle, about to pull her helmet over her blue-tipped hair when he called out to her. He didn’t know what it was about the particular day that made him so desperate to finally buck up and ask her, but some piece of his heart knew that it was a moment he had to take. He fiddled with the bright orange scarf he had wrapped around his neck despite the heat, tiny crackles of static electricity popping beneath his fingers as he glanced up at Nya, swallowed, and asked the question that had been on the tip of his tongue for months. Shockingly, she had grinned and agreed, telling him that she would text him after her shift at her family’s shop. With a final smile and a wave, she pulled on her helmet and skidded away, leaving Jay, smiling like an idiot, on the curb. 

The line moved forward as the rollercoaster’s cars pulled up to the gate, the riders climbing out of it with exhilarated smiles and tousled hair. Jay looked at them, his eyes rimmed with anxiety. They had reached the front of the line. 

“Last chance, Sparky,” Nya whispered as they took slow steps forward. “You gonna be okay?” She squeezed his hand, instilling confidence in him with the simple touch. As long as she was by his side, he had a feeling everything would be okay. Just like on the battlefield. 

Jay focused on Nya instead of his anxiety, grinning at her and pulling her to the cart. “This is gonna be great,” he said, hesitating when Nya gestured toward one of the front carts. “Just not one of the front ones… okay?”

Nya chuckled. “Okay, Jay.” 

They made their way to one of the middle cars on the roller coaster, letting go of each other’s hands for long enough to make sure they were strapped in and safe.

“Hey, it’s just like a mech, right?” Nya said, leaning into Jay’s shoulder as she took one of his shaking hands. He nodded as the coaster jolted forward, creaking up to the first drop. His stomach twisted, his head spinning. He screwed his eyes shut so he wouldn’t have to watch the world below come rushing toward him as he flew to his death. Then, Nya squeezed his hand again, pulling his attention toward her. “You’re safe, don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to you.” 

As they reached the top, the ride pausing for the first drop, Nya leaned over and pressed a kiss on Jay’s cheek. His eyes flew open and he whipped over to look at her. Nya was grinning back at him, her eyes slightly anxious as the warm mark her lips left behind on his cheek burned with his blush. Just before the rollercoaster continued down the hill, Jay summoned all of his courage and leaned forward into her lips, pulling Nya in for a kiss in return. 

Unfortunately, the coaster took that opportune moment to continue down the first drop, leading Jay and Nya’s faces to slam together, their teeth knocking against each other’s lips. They both pulled away, wincing as the rollercoaster continued its trek down the track, then caught each other’s eyes and burst into laughter. Nya slipped her hand back into Jay’s and turned her attention back to the track as they flew through the course of the ride. Jay followed her gaze, but his mind could only focus on the burning mark she left on his cheek and his lips. 

As they climbed off of the rollercoaster and walked back into the park hand-in-hand, Jay couldn’t stop the smile that stretched across his face. All of a sudden, he didn’t feel so scared of the amusement park’s attractions anymore. 

Chapter Text

A bead of sweat brewed on Nya’s upper lip as she studied the details of the machine below her. Nothing seemed to make sense, and the sun beating down on the back of her neck did nothing to ease her frustration. She groaned, resisting the urge to kick the hull of the Bounty as she stood up, wiping the sweat off of her face with the crook of her elbow to avoid smearing it with the grease coating her fingertips. 

“Any luck?” 

Nya turned enough to see Jay emerging cautiously from behind the wreck of their ship, where the rest of the team had been attempting to escape the heat of the desert they had crashed in. She shook her head as he stepped up beside her, squinting down at the wreckage. 

“You want some help?”

Nya smiled, stepping back toward the ship. “Sure.” 

She always loved working on machines with Jay. They always found themselves in a perfect rhythm, the comfortable silence between them charging up with electricity as both of their minds whirred, working through the problems and solving them as they tinkered together. Jay was the only one Nya was alright with sharing her workbench with, as the rest of the team had learned when Lloyd tried to help her fix the Bounty the last time it had crashed and she had nearly bashed his head in with the hammer she threw across the room at him. Jay, on the other hand, was almost an extension of her. When they worked together, it was as though he climbed inside her mind and knew exactly what to do, his hands working as fast as greased lightning, with all the precision that the machinery required. 

“It’s gotta be the pistons, right? They’re overheating,” Jay muttered, poking around the pieces of metal that allowed their two-hundred-year-old pirate ship to fly. Nya shook her head, her sweaty hair bouncing around her face. 

“I tried that already. No dice,” she said with a huff, squatting down beside Jay as he continued examining the engine. 

“Weird…” he murmured, shifting the same pieces of the machine around that Nya had. Without pulling his attention away from the metal, he extended his hand to her. “Pass me the socket wrench?” 

Nya obliged, digging around in the Bounty’s emergency toolbox and passing Jay the right piece of equipment. She watched as he slid the wrench into place between two canisters in the engine, turning just enough for it to…

Boom . 

A cloud of greasy smoke engulfed Jay and Nya. The master of water squeezed her eyes shut against the smoke, coughing slightly as she inhaled it. Jay’s hand made its way through the dark cloud to take hers, tugging her away from the wreckage.

Once they were out of the haze, Nya opened her eyes to see Jay standing in front of her, his entire front scorched with oily sludge. She assumed that she looked the same, and after a moment of assessing that he was alright, Nya burst into laughter. 

Jay blinked at her for a moment, clearly wondering if a piece of shrapnel had flown at her and lodged in her brain, causing her to double over in a fit of giggles. Then, the ridiculousness of the scene came together in his mind, and a bubble of laughter burst from his lips as he joined her. They stood there, continuing with their hysterical, uncontrollable sniggering as the red, black, and green ninja ran around the corner to check up on them. 

“Woah! You guys okay?” Cole asked, his dark eyes scanning the couple as they turned to their teammates, trying - and failing - to stifle their giggles. 

“Oh, FSM, what did Jay do?” Kai asked, wincing as Lloyd elbowed him in the side. 

“Hey!” Jay exclaimed defensively, pulling out of his and Nya’s hysterics to shoot a scrunched-eyebrow riddled glare at Kai. Then, as he seemed to remember what had led them to the explosion, his brow un-creased, his posture slouching slightly as he gave in. “… I messed with the pistons…” he mumbled. 

“Right… right…” Kai said, crossing his arms over his chest with a nod as he turned back on the sand. “Well, you can’t pay me to stand in this sun anymore. Try not to kill my sister, Jay.” With that, he strode back around the Bounty to where Zane was crafting ice blocks for them to survive the heat, with Cole and Lloyd close on his heels. Lloyd, at least, gave them the courtesy of a thanks for attempting to fix their ship before he dashed around the corner. 

“I wouldn’t dare!” Jay called moments after the team disappeared behind the ship, turning to squint at Nya with a lopsided smile stretched across his grease-covered face. 

“For the record, we wouldn’t have died from the piston explosion,” Nya said, reaching forward to swipe her thumb along Jay’s cheek, uncovering the freckles that lay below the sludge. “At most, we’d have been permanently maimed.” 

“Worth it,” Jay said as he leaned into her touch, his grin growing to create a dimple against her palm. Then, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a dark blue handkerchief, pulling out of Nya’s grasp enough to wipe the oil off of his lips, making sure they were clean when he leaned in to kiss hers. Nya grinned into his lips as she returned the chaste kiss, her hands flying to cup his jaw. 

As she tasted the metallic grease shift from her lips to Jay’s, the solution to their problem popped into Nya’s mind. Her eyes flew open and she pulled back, her hands still on Jay’s face, his lips parted from the sudden lack of contact with hers. 

“That’s it!” she cried, all of the puzzle pieces of the Bounty’s engine coming together in her mind as she turned all of her attention back to the machinery, rooting around in the toolbox for the perfect instrument to assist her. Jay followed behind her, kneeling in the sand beside Nya, smirking as he caught her attention before she dove back into the project at hand. 

“Just tell me what tools you need. I don’t wanna be responsible for permanently maiming your pretty face.”

Chapter Text

Jay was exhausted. He and Cole had been traveling for weeks searching for Master Wu, constantly coming up short in the search for their sensei. He was frustrated at the fruitlessness of their mission, snapping at Cole that they should head back to the monastery (as per Lloyd’s summoning) and regroup before continuing the search. 

The strap of Jay’s duffle bag dug into his shoulder as he trudged down the hallway, offering Cole a quiet apology for his attitude before turning the corner toward his room. The hinges creaked as he pushed the door open, wheezing as it was opened for what he assumed was the first time in months. Jay sighed, his attention wandering back to his failed assignment rather than his bedroom as he flicked on the light, illuminating the room, which was filled to the brim with white roses. 

“What the…” Jay muttered, dropping his bag and looking around the room, a small smile creeping onto his lips as his attention wandered over his bed, where Nya was seated, a large bouquet of roses, wrapped in a ribbon of their signature blue, positioned in her lap. She was beaming across the room at him. 

“Welcome home!” 

Jay grinned, a laugh bubbling through the frustration that had plagued him all the way home as he stepped into the room. “Were you just sitting here in the dark waiting for me?” 

Nya blushed, pursing her lips as she nodded. 

“What if I decided to unwind and play video games and didn’t come back in until morning?” he asked, continuing to tiptoe across his room. Nya shrugged. 

“I didn’t think of that. Darn,” she said, shifting the bouquet off of her lap and rising up on her knees on Jay’s bed as he finally reached her. She wrapped her arms around his waist, looking up into his eyes. 

“Where’d you even get all these?” Jay asked, gesturing around at the dozens upon dozens of flowers before his hands came up to cup Nya’s cheeks. 

“Can’t a girl have her secrets?” Jay squinted back at her, pushing her for more. Nya rolled her eyes with a small chuckle. “I know a guy who knows a girl, alright? I wanted to do something special for your homecoming.”

“Thank you.”

“Now, can you shut your mouth of lightning up for a second so I can kiss you?”

Jay made a zipping motion over his lips, miming throwing away the key that locked them shut and then leaning down as though he was going to press a kiss to Nya’s lips - it was what she was prepared for - only to wrap his arms around her torso and scoop her up into an embrace. Nya giggled lightly before returning the hug, her arms wrapping around Jay’s back to pull him in as she attempted to gain her footing on his bright blue rug, giving up when he tugged her off the ground, swaying her gently from side to side. Nya’s grin widened as she pressed her head into Jay’s shoulder, her fingertips digging into his t-shirt as one of his hands found its way to cradle the back of her head, the other holding her securely to ensure she wouldn’t tumble to the ground. 

“I really missed you, ya’know?” Nya whispered, squeezing a tiny groan out of Jay.

“Really? I never would’ve guessed,” Jay said sarcastically, lowering Nya back down to the bed and sitting beside her, the mattress creaking slightly under their shared weight on the edge of it. Nya rolled her eyes and shoved him lightly, beaming as he leaned back in, pushing a chunk of her hair, which had broken free from her ponytail, away from her face. Then, he took a rose from the bouquet Nya had discarded on the bed, letting it rest behind her ear. Nya blushed at the simple tenderness. “I missed you, too. Cole doesn’t like my jokes nearly as much as you.”
Nya shrugged, the smell of roses enveloping her. “It’s an acquired taste,” she whispered, leaning in to finally claim her kiss. 

Chapter Text

‘Crazy Agent Walker and his fishbowl’ was what Jay had become known for around the office. He didn’t blame his coworkers for thinking his behavior was strange. Hell, if he had seen his present self a week before his assignment, he would’ve thought he was out of his mind. But as of late, it didn't seem so crazy. 

It had started off normal, like every assignment Jay had been put on since becoming head of Realm Reassignment at the company. He stepped through the portal gate to get to the problem - in this case, the tsunamis plaguing the Endless Sea - and looked around for the issue. When he reached the coastline, he saw her standing there, her watery smile slightly lopsided as she surveyed him from beyond the waves. 

Jay had called out the normal spiel to her, telling her that she had to come with him, that the all-encompassing authority of the Administration gave him the right to take her back to the office for experimentation. Of course, he said it in the bureaucratic way he had memorized through his years at the Administration, and wasn’t surprised when she didn’t listen. Field problems never did. Jay was surprised, however, when she approached him, her presence pushing a wave forward on the sand so the sea flooded his polished shoes. 

“Who are you?”

She shrugged, tilting her head as she looked down at him. After a moment, she reached into the pool of water that made up her chest, just where her heart would be if she had flesh, pulling out a golden pendant hanging from a delicate chain. She extended it to him, her watery eyebrows raised. 

“Wh-what?” Jay stuttered, his fingertips flying to his own neckline, to the nearly identical necklace that hung underneath his suit. He wore it out of habit, mostly. He had no idea where it came from or what it meant, but there was some piece of him that refused to let it go or take it off. It was the same part of him that believed that, somehow, his pendant would fit perfectly with the one worn by the Watergirl. She widened her eyes, continuing to push the pendant forward. Jay, stunned, knew that the mystery was too far out of his reach to make any sense of. He pulled out the jar he had been sent with for data collection, removing the lid and holding it out to the girl in the water. “Will you come with me?” 

Shockingly, the girl pulled her hand back, pushing the pendant back into her chest for safe keeping, then leapt into the jar. Jay brought her back to the Administration, but didn’t have it in him to send her to the lab for testing. There was something about her that he couldn’t quite place… some piece of the mystery that he knew he had to solve on his own. 

So, he transferred her to a fishbowl so she would have room to swim, and he kept her close at all times. 

Having a companion made the doldrums of the Administration somewhat less boring. Jay had taken to asking the girl questions throughout the day - mostly when his coworkers weren’t around - grinning as she squeaked out a response that he was sure only whales could understand, gesturing around wildly. 

“Watergirl, what do you think of this?” Jay asked as he customized his avatar for a new game he had installed - Prime Empire - which he had heard some of the other Administration agents talking about the weekend before. They had mentioned something about the game turning evil years ago and attempting to take over a city before the merge, but Jay was sure that they were just making things up to check if he really was crazy. Jay turned the screen toward the fishbowl beside his keyboard so the watery figure in it could get a good look at his bright blue rockstar avatar, which he had, unfortunately, spent real life money to customize. 

In the weeks he had been carrying the fishbowl around, Jay had begun to understand pieces of the Watergirl’s squeaky speech. From what he could comprehend, she liked his video game suit, but thought he was an idiot for spending his paycheck on it.

“Yeah, you’re right about that, Watergirl,” he mumbled, swiping his mouse across the screen to start the game, reaching for his remote control when a creaking from his door signaled that he wasn’t alone.

“Agent Walker? Who are you talking to?”

Jay turned on his swivel chair, his eyes wide as he glanced quickly at the girl in the fishbowl, who had disappeared into her watery dwelling, making it appear as though the glass was full of empty water. Jay pursed his lips, turning back to his subordinate, who he knew was thinking he was insane and should be committed. With the proper paperwork, of course. “I’m working on my research project, Prentiss. I’m incredibly busy and would prefer not to be disturbed,” he said pointedly, raising his eyebrows at the other agent until he got the point.

“Right. Of course, Agent Walker,” Prentiss said apologetically, backing out of the room. Jay swore he could hear him planning how to tell his coworkers that their manager was out of his mind on his way out. He had started to get used to it.

Jay turned back to the fishbowl, where the Watergirl had emerged, leaning against the lip of the glass with a playful smile. Jay shook his head at her, his own grin dancing on his lips. “Really, Watergirl? You’re making me seem crazy, here.”

The girl in the water shrugged her liquidy shoulders, squeaking up at him about how maybe he was crazy, but she was crazy, too. Jay’s fingers wandered to the chain around his neck, brushing along the pendant that hung there. The one that was eerily familiar to him, that was worn by the mysterious Watergirl sitting in the fishbowl on his desk. He couldn’t explain it, but he was sure that there was a significance of both of them wearing the symbols. Maybe it was a part of his past that he couldn’t remember, despite frantically attempting to recall it. 

Being the Administration’s ‘Crazy Agent Walker’ was starting to be a nickname he could get behind, especially with the Watergirl living in the land of insanity with him. With her simple watery presence, she helped ease the loneliness that had consumed him in his tiny office, filling the hole in his heart that had always been longing for more, like the part of him that felt missing was filled with the sea.

Chapter Text

Nya didn’t know how she had gotten to the floating piece of land hurling through the cloudy sky. 

All she remembered was the moment in which she was declared to be betrothed to the last of the Djinn, then darkness. She was vaguely aware that there was someone else in control, but she couldn't see what they did while puppeting her body. She couldn't feel it. A blank slate of her memory was all that Nya felt until she snapped back into focus, a dull pain spreading across her chest, reaching up to her arms and down her torso. Nya looked down, her eyes registering sickly green venom stains on the bodice of her wedding dress before the corners of her vision blurred, her legs collapsing beneath her. 

As Nya fell to the dusty ground, arms came up behind her, catching her in the lap of another ninja. Jay. 

Despite his own damaged, aching body, he slid across the dirt and pulled her into his arms, his hand flying to wander over the stained fabric of her dress, not daring to touch the venom. His split lip quivered as tears pooled in his bloodshot eyes. Using all of the strength she had left, Nya reached up to caress Jay’s cheek, careful not to press too hard against the bruises and cuts. She made him promise not to waste his wish on saving her, not to be so foolish as to sacrifice the good of their world just so that she could be a part of their boys club. Nya had never wanted that, anyway. 

He protested momentarily, telling her that he didn’t want to lose her. She shook her head, the movement making her entire body ache. She told him that the greatest love stories ended in tragedy, so they would be hurling toward this conclusion no matter what. 

Before she blacked out completely, falling into the darkness of her impending death, Nya heard Nadakan make a wish. Jay, his eyes squeezed shut as a sob shook his body, didn’t hear the Djinn wish him away. Nya, her eyes sliding closed, her tongue feeling like cement in her mouth, couldn’t warn him as the wish magic made its way across the floating island. The last thing she felt was Jay’s body stiffening beneath her as Nadakan turned him into a statue of gold, a tear frozen on his cheek, his arms wrapped eternally around Nya’s lifeless body. 

With a gasp, Nya pulled herself out of her nightmare. She clawed at the exposed skin of her chest through the tank top she had been sleeping in, where the venom had been resting moments before in her slumbering mind. Dampness coated her fingertips, but it wasn’t tiger widow venom. It was her own cold sweat. 

It had been a month and a half of sleepless nights after the waking nightmare that was Nadakan’s rule over Ninjago was over. Most nights, Nya would work herself into exhaustion in the old SamX cave, hoping that falling asleep as morning neared, slumped against her workbench, would lead to a night without reliving the horrors of her memories in her sleep. But, she never shook the nightmares. She just woke up with her joints aching, a wrench or screwdriver clutched in her hands like a sword. 

The worst part of the nightmares was not being able to talk to anyone about them. Even though the rest of the team saw the bags under Nya’s eyes deepen and darken, she always insisted that she was fine, just having odd dreams. Even though her older brother’s eyebrows crinkled with worry at her forced cheerfulness, she couldn’t confide in him. How could she? To him, the nightmare had never happened. He had never watched her die in Jay’s arms. 

Jay. The only other member of the team who remembered. 

More nights than not, Nya woke up in her own room, but fell back asleep in his. She was too stubborn to fall asleep in his room in the first place, both in hopes that for once she wouldn’t need him to hold her to fall back asleep and fears of what the others would think about their complicated relationship. But in the middle of the night, Nya knew it was safe to stealthily move through the corridors of the monastery, tiptoeing down the hallway to Jay’s room. 

Nya’s thick socks allowed her to silently move through the slumbering monastery toward Jay’s room, which was positioned right across from the game room. She paused for a moment, before pushing the door open quietly, surprised when the crack spilled light into the hallway and she nearly stepped face-first into the master of lightning. 

“Woah!” Jay stuttered in his tracks, stepping back with widened, anxious eyes, which turned bashful when he registered that it was Nya waiting at his door. The visible tension in his shoulders eased and he stepped out of the way so that Nya could join him in the room. “Oh, hey.”

“Hi,” Nya whispered, closing the door behind her and scanning the room. Jay’s bed was unmade, the duvet thrown onto the floor. It was as if he had tossed and turned in an attempt to sleep, just to come up short. The swivel chair at his desk was pulled out, pens and papers scattered across it haphazardly. Nya knew that when he couldn’t sleep, he put his whirring mind to use, just like she did. In the month and a half since they had stopped Nadakan’s hostile takeover of Ninjago, Jay and Nya had almost built an entire fleet of vehicles and small inventions. It was another difference that their teammates questioned, but that Jay and Nya refused to talk to them about. “Couldn’t sleep?”

Jay shrugged, then nodded. His sleepy eyes twitched. “Never can. You?”

“Nightmares. Again,” Nya said with a sigh, walking over to Jay’s bed and perching herself on the edge of it. She tilted her head as she looked across the room at him. “Can I stay with you?” 

Jay’s sleep deprivation didn’t stop him from smiling, his teeth peering out from between his lips, his entire face dancing with electricity. It reminded Nya of the Jay she had first met. Jay before… everything. He limped across the room to her - a phantom pain, he had told her, since his time shackled on the Misfortune’s Keep had been lost in time - and climbed past her onto his bed, settling among the pillows and opening up his body for her to join him. A tiny smile crawled onto Nya’s lips as she scooched across the mattress, finding her place between Jay’s legs so she was cocooned by him, her head resting on his chest. Jay’s lips brushed against her hair as he whispered to her. “Of course, Nya. You always can.”

Nya squeezed Jay gently, clinging to his t-shirt as his hands moved to her back, hugging her in return. “Do you wanna talk? About why you can’t sleep?”

Jay was quiet for a moment, his fingers tracing small circles on Nya’s back. Then, in classic Jay fashion, he deflected. Focusing on her instead. “Do you want to talk about your nightmare?”

“No,” Nya said quietly, tears prickling at her eyes as she remembered the solid Jay statue that held her as she died, right before she yanked herself out of her sleep. She pawed at Jay’s side, at his bicep, at the muscles of his flesh, desperate to feel the warmth of his skin and the give of his body. Desperate to know that he was alive . 

Maybe it wasn’t the healthiest manner of coping, but denial was all Jay and Nya knew to do. They only had that and each other to cling to through the nightmares, through the lack of sleep, through the flashbacks and the phantom pains. 

“Okay,” Jay whispered, pulling Nya closer to him, almost crushing her with his squeeze. Nya nuzzled her face into his shirt, comforted by the smell of the monastery’s shared detergent as it mixed with the smell that was uniquely Jay . Her eyelids drooped with exhaustion as Jay continued running his hands up and down her back, the rhythm combining with the steady beating of his heart, lulling her eyes shut. 

Nya didn’t remember when she fell asleep. When she stirred the next morning, squinting at the bright blue light filtering through Jay’s curtains as she rubbed her eyes, she was thrilled to realize that she had secured a few hours of blissfully dreamless sleep. Jay’s arms were clamped down around her, not enough to make her feel claustrophobic, but enough to make her feel secure. And prevent too much movement. Nya pulled her head away from Jay’s chest just enough to look up at him, grinning as she saw his mouth hanging wide open as he slept. She watched a few of his deep breaths, her ear to his chest, right over his heart, before letting her eyes fall closed once again, taking advantage of the infrequent sleep that being wrapped up in Jay’s arms gave her.

Chapter Text

When Zane trudged back to the group, powerless and frowning, Jay’s heart dropped into the acid of his stomach. For so long, the ninja team had been the only Elemental Masters of their realm, making competition near nonexistent. It had made them cocky as they walked into the Tournament of Sources, leading Zane to get knocked out in the first round. 

If Zane couldn’t move on, what chance did Jay have? He was already rattled from thinking he saw Nya in the crowd, his attention constantly wandering to the blue-tipped braid that he saw disappearing around every corner. With his attention scattered, he knew he didn’t stand a chance of fighting back against Shatterspin, should he need to. His stomach flipped at the thought. Jay turned his attention back to his team’s conversation, hoping it would distract him from the anxiety swirling around in his gut. 

“Now, I can only spectate until my powers are returned at the end of the games. I apologize for not being of better assistance for the mission,” Zane said apologetically, his cold blue eyes drooping with guilt. 

“You did the best you could, Zane. Nobody said this was gonna be easy,” Lloyd said, reaching across the group to put his hand on Zane’s shoulder. The nindroid loosened his posture slightly at the touch. 

“I wonder who’s next,” Jay murmured, turning to look up at Roby as he zoomed by.

“Up next… the most shocking competitor in the tournament… Jay Walker! Elemental master of lightning!” Roby announced, zipping by on his hovering podium as Jay’s photo appeared on the screen behind him. He groaned. 

“I just had to ask, didn’t I?” he muttered, stepping into the arena and shaking out his muscles. Get psyched, Jay. For the good of the team. For the good of the Source Dragons . 

Lloyd, the team’s leader, followed close behind, stepping up to the barricade between the competition and the spectators. “It looks like Ras is coaching your competition.” 

Jay shook his head, trying not to let the prospect of Ras’ potential team member get to his head. He turned back to Lloyd, flashing him a grin that didn’t reach to his worried eyes. “Don’t worry. Whoever it is, I can take ‘em.”

“And, welcome to the arena… she’s slick… she’s cool… and she’s well-hydrated.” Jay’s stomach dropped at the summary. It couldn’t be… “Nya! Elemental master of water!”

From the cluster of Ras’ team, she emerged, turning towards the arena with her brows low over her eyes. Her hair was longer, pulled into a braid over her shoulder rather than the classic ponytail she had sported before the merge, and the water scars on her face from her time at sea seemed to have deepened. But it was her. 

Nya . 

The moment of shock and terror was over at the sight of her, actually standing in front of him, after so long. Jay’s face cracked open in a smile. “Nya! I knew I saw you! Where have you-”

“What are you talking about? I’ve never seen you before in my life,” Nya spat, her words ringing over and over again in Jay’s ears as his breathing quickened, the shallow gasps for air doing nothing to help his anxiety. What? 

Before he could question her words or beg her to snap out of whatever trance she was under, Nya pulled her hood over her face. It was gunmetal grey with blue accents, making her feel familiar but all so different at the same time. Jay swallowed as Roby introduced the challenge. They would have to race to the top of the tower. Jay wasn’t sure that he could even move his legs, let alone scale the vertical wall in the middle of the arena. 

“Lloyd, I can’t fight her!” he called across the arena, turning back to the spectator area. Lloyd looked back at him with saddened eyes.

“We don’t have a choice, Jay.” 

Above the arena, Bleckt rang the bell, signaling the beginning of the race. Nya loosened her shoulders, the joints cracking menacingly as she studied Jay like a hunter stalks its prey.

“Nya… It’s me! Jay!” he said, desperation kicking in. 

“Is that supposed to mean something to me, lightning boy?” she asked with a scoff, launching forward to roundhouse kick him, her foot landing squarely on his torso, knocking the wind out of Jay in the same movement that knocked him to the ground. Jay groaned, attempting to pick himself up as Nya took the moment of his vulnerability to strike again. This time, he saw it coming, and was able to roll out of the way before she could kick him in the face. Then, he pushed himself off the ground, gritting his teeth against the pain in his side that he was sure would leave a blotchy bruise. 

“Jay, focus on the dagger!” Lloyd’s voice called from the sidelines. Jay looked up and over his shoulder at the dagger positioned hundreds of feet above him at the top of the tower. When he turned back around, Nya was already barreling toward him. He instinctively kicked her back and charged up a fistful of lightning, ready to inflict it on his opponent until he saw Nya’s deep brown eyes peeking back at him through her mask. In the moment that he hesitated, she pulled herself off the ground.  

“You had a clear shot and didn’t take it. What are you, a terrible ninja or something?”

Jay sighed, tears prickling behind his eyes. “I don’t want to hurt you, Nya. We care too much for each other!” 

“Speak for yourself,” she said, releasing a battle cry as she launched toward him, water swirling around both hands. 

Jay pushed back, their forearms colliding as they both charged up their elemental powers, their arms buzzing against one another with exertion. They had sparred like this before, but it had always been in good fun, ending with a joke or a kiss before they went to raid the pantry together. Now, it just made Jay feel nauseous. 

Nya took the opportunity of their faces being just inches apart to offer helpful exposition, her water continuing to swirl, ready for action, around them as they stood face-to-face. “My Master Ras told me that you’d try to get in my head, lightning boy. That you’d try to use mind games against me. But you won’t shake my confidence, because I don’t believe a word you say!” 

Jay mustered up all of his courage to push Nya away from him. “Ras is the one lying to you, Nya! You’re a ninja, like us!” he gestured back to his team. “But you disappeared after the merge.” Nya’s eyes narrowed behind her mask as she took a step back. Jay stepped forward, reaching his arms out despite her nonverbal insistence that he stay away. “Nya. You’re the love of my life. My Yang.”

“Ugh, as if!” Nya rolled her eyes, continuing to back away. “Ras told me the truth: I was a great warrior fighting alongside my master in the Wyldness. Then, after the merge, I ended up in the Administration, where Ras found me and rescued me.” 

The tears behind Jay’s eyes threatened to break free. Nya had been in the Administration, the large building at the edge of the Realm of Madness. For six years, Jay had been protecting the Cragling village across the mist from the Administration. For six years, they hadn’t even been a realm apart . Jay swallowed his tears. There would be time for that later. 

Nya lunged at Jay, knocking him to the ground. His hip collided with the hardwood of the arena, and he groaned as the crowd let out a collective gasp. 

“I owe it to Ras to win this tournament. Whatever it takes,” Nya said from above him, pulling a wolf mask out of her gi. No . No, no no no.

“Nya, no!” 

As Nya pulled the wolf mask down over her already-covered face, waiting for Ras to slam the gong and shatter every ounce of goodness left in her soul, all Jay could think about was the girl he loved. His Yang. The girl whose favorite color was blue, the girl who became her element to save him. As Nya shattered her goodness, throwing her head back with a cackle that could only be described as villain-like, Jay found himself thankful that Kai wasn’t there to see it happen. 

Jay’s heart stopped, his stomach lurched, and tears hammered behind his eyes as he watched the scene. The team had been warned against the powers of Shatterspin, had been taught how to notice it and how to stop it, but all of that vanished from his mind as he watched it happen to Nya .

Red consumed her, turning her eyes and wrapping around her in dark, curling Spinjitzu. Jay had to shove the memory of Nya in red before she joined the team out of his mind, feeling like he was going to vomit on the floor of the arena at the thought of the younger version of Nya he had met all those years ago. Of the girl in red, then later in blue, that he had fallen in love with. The darkened, twisted version of her standing before him didn’t give him any chance but to fight back, unless he fought back hard . Jay swallowed, pulling his face covering over his mouth, and tried to focus on the movement of everything around him. The ground beneath him, which he knew was subtly shifting him through space despite feeling like he was standing still, the crowd holding a collective breath as they watched the exchange, Roby zooming around to make sure the fight was shot from every angle. The love of his life ripping herself apart in front of him. 

I’m sorry, Nya . 

Jay pulled himself into a burst of blue and yellow lightning-filled Spinjitzu, spinning for a few moments before the tornado morphed into a dragon and he shot up into the sky, arching over the crowd, ready to descend into Nya’s Shatterspin. A tear slipped from his eye with the movement as he dove down, catching a glimpse of her glowing red eyes as she squinted up at him, releasing a frustrated shriek as he broke through her tornado of Shatterspin, sending her tumbling back as he landed safely on the arena floor. 

The crowd went wild, but all Jay could hear was his own blood pumping in his ears. He watched Nya pick herself up off the ground, groaning, her red eyes turned down. A few chunks of hair had broken loose from her braid, and her lip was split and bleeding down her chin. Jay wanted to reach out to her, to care for her wounds, to make sure she was alright… but Lloyd’s words rang in his ears. Focus on the dagger . 

He looked up at the tower, squinting through the darkness to see the weapon hovering at the top. All he had to do was scale the wall and grab the dagger, and then it would all be over. 

Jay ran, pumping all of his power into his feet as he jumped up to the first foothold, yanking himself up and flipping over to the next. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nya look up at him, watching him with fury as she revved up her elemental powers and chased after him, hurling balls of water as he continued his climb. Mist brushed Jay’s cheeks as a droplet shot past him, Nya close on his heels as he flipped up onto the next platform. She joined him, her teeth bared as she reached forward to knock him off, and he acted fast, leaping away so he wouldn’t have to shove her off of the platform. 

No matter what, she was still Nya . And he could never hurt Nya. 

Jay focused, forcing his aching legs to propel him skyward one last time, landing gracefully on the top of the platform and scooping the dagger out of its floating podium. The crowd erupted in applause as he held it in the air triumphantly, then the tower retreated into the floor of the arena.

“We have a winner! Jay, elemental master of lightning! Woohoo!” Roby exclaimed, riling up the crowd with a wave of his hands as he continued zipping around on his hoverboard. Jay peeked over at Nya, who was glaring at the floor as her powers, blue and bright, were pulled into the cup in Roby’s hands, then transferred to Jay.

He was sure that the aching in his heart wasn’t due to the additional powers, but they came along with an odd sensation, nonetheless. 

“The thrills keep coming: Nya is now without her elemental powers, and Jay can control lightning and water! Jay, how about you show us what you’ve got?” Roby yelled, grinning down at Jay, who gritted his teeth, looking down as he launched a ball of water into the air, which fell around them like rain. 

With Roby already moving on to the next competitors, Jay turned his attention to Nya, who glared at him before striding away, toward the rest of her team. Jay’s chin wobbled as he watched the exchange between Nya and Lord Ras, whose body language signaled his silent disapproval before he turned, leading the team away from Nya. Leaving her to process her loss alone. 

Jay seized the moment to approach her.

“Nya?” he whispered, clearing the rising tears from his throat as he stepped toward her. Nya turned slightly, looking over her shoulder at Jay. Her lips were pulled in a flat line, her eyebrows furrowed. “I know you lost your memory… but I need you to know the truth.” Jay paused for a moment, foolishly hoping that Nya would turn around and tell him that everything was alright. Jay kept his voice quiet so it wouldn’t be so obvious that it was shaking. “I love you. I will always love you, Nya.” 

Nya’s eye twitched, her lip curling as Jay reached out for her. She shoved him away, turning her attention fully toward him as her eyes shifted back to a glowing red as she got in his face, making sure he heard every word. “And I will always hate you,” she spat, pulling back and stomping away. Jay’s feet stayed rooted to the ground, feeling like they were going to buckle and break beneath him as he watched Nya disappear into the city of temples. A sob bubbled up in his throat but couldn’t escape his trembling lips. 

Nya may have been the one to shatter her goodness, but in the same, swift moment, she shattered Jay’s heart.

Chapter Text

The chrysalis wiggled, the edge of it splitting open as the butterfly emerged. Nya had been sitting in the courtyard, soaking in the sunlight on one of her rare days off, when the movement caught her attention, pulling her over to the garden. She was mesmerized by it, seeing new life spread its wings right in front of her. 

“Whatcha doing?” 

Nya jumped slightly at Jay’s voice, pulling away from the tiny cocoon to face Jay, who was stretching by the door with a small smile playing on his lips as he studied her. She waved him over, shifting slightly so he could crouch beside her in the garden. 

“Woah,” Jay whispered, his curls tickling against Nya’s cheek as he leaned in to get a better look at the butterfly as it broke free. Its damp wings curled around its tiny body as it crawled out of the chrysalis. 

The planter box outside of the monastery had been littered with the stages of butterfly life for weeks. Vibrant wings, striped bugs, tiny eggs. Bright green pods stuck to the fence, to the pots in the garden, to other plants, to the tables and chairs and - in the case of one brave caterpillar - pieces of the training equipment. Jay and Nya had taken a peculiar interest to the colony of butterflies fluttering around the garden, waiting for the opportunity to watch the first butterflies emerge. 

The butterfly moved up the brick, unfurling its wings so that the deliciously warm sun could hit them. When it opened up its wings, the insides were revealed to be bright blue, spreading from a light turquoise closest to its abdomen to a deep cerulean towards the tips. 

“It’s beautiful,” Nya breathed, careful not to disturb the fresh bug in front of them.

“Yeah…” Jay murmured in return, watching the butterfly open and close its wings, testing the new additions as they dried. After a few moments, when the sun had dried the butterfly’s wings enough for it to fly, it flapped harder, tentatively rising into the air around the garden. It bobbed around the flowers for a bit before adventuring off into the sky. Nya and Jay grinned as they watched it go. “The majesty of nature…” 

Nya turned, staring blankly at Jay for a moment before bursting into laughter, wrapping her arm around his middle and pulling him in for a half-hug. He returned it easily, resting his cheek on her forehead. “Way to really capture the beauty, Jay.” 

In a realm far away, years down the line, Nya was reminded of the butterfly when a similarly ocean-colored one flew past her gaze. Once again, Nya was sitting in the monastery courtyard, but she was staring blankly at the fountain, waiting for something to break into the endless monotony of her loneliness. Her mind had just wandered back to Jay - not that it strayed from him for more than a few seconds in his absence - when a butterfly bobbed through the air in front of her. She watched as it swirled in the air around her, making sure that it caught her attention, making sure that she saw its bright blue wings as it drifted by. Nya knew it wasn’t the same butterfly she and Jay had watched emerge from its slumber before the merge, that had been years ago. But a tiny piece of her wondered if it was a descendent of the creature from her and Jay’s past. A tiny piece of her latched onto the butterfly wearing their shared favorite color, the way that the light blue blended into the dark, the two pieces coming together to create a beautiful painting across the wings of the butterfly.

Maybe Nya was just clinging to any connection to Jay she could find. She ached in his absence. 

As the butterfly floated away, a small frown crept to Nya’s lips as she watched it go. She knew it was the ‘majesty of nature’, like Jay had said years before, but that didn’t stop her from feeling abandoned by the creature, or from feeling saddened as she watched it drift into a spiderweb on the front gates of the monastery. Nya gasped as she watched, wide-eyed and horrified, as a tiger-striped spider scurried along its web to the struggling butterfly, sinking its teeth into the bright blue bug, sucking the life out of it as it slowly stopped moving. Nya swore she saw the wings turn a sickening red, but that didn’t make sense. 

Tears rose in Nya’s eyes, her emotion clawing at her throat, wet and hot. She didn’t know how to explain the swell of feelings - it was just a bug - but that didn’t stop the tears from pooling, clouding her vision with watery ripples. She shook her head, standing up and bolting into the monastery, beelining to her room and throwing herself face down onto her bed so that none of her teammates could see or hear her sobs. 

Chapter Text

“What in the ninblooey is that? ” Jay shouted into the howling wind, looking up at the sky as it shattered into multi-colored light. Nya ran up beside him, her eyes widening as she took in the storm above them. 

“What is that?” Nya repeated, turning to Jay with wide eyes filled with confusion, only to see the sentiment mirrored in his. She turned to the monastery as the rest of the team barreled out of it, all staring up at the sky as another shockwave hit the ground beneath their feet. 

“The earth, it's… screaming,” Cole said softly, kneeling down to run his fingertips along the cobblestone. Then, he looked back up at the sky, his attention shifting to Master Wu. 

“Master Wu, what’s going on? Was this in the scrolls you’ve been studying?” Nya asked, raising her voice over the volume of the storm as Jay reached for her hand, his own fingers trembling as he looked up at the rainbow clouds.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen like this… this isn’t right…” Master Wu murmured, more to himself than his students. It was as if he was in a trance as he looked up, only snapping back into action as a food cart flew into the building with a crash. “Alright, ninja. We have a lot of work to do. Nya: you and Zane prepare the Bounty. Kai and Cole, fly out and make sure everyone’s alright. Jay, power up your mech. You can help intercept debris. And where is Lloyd ?”

The team sprang into action as Master Wu bolted back into the monastery in search of his nephew, having received their assignments for the mission at hand. They were used to following orders, no matter how odd and confusing the situation they were fighting back against was. Cole and Kai pulled down their hoods and were gone in a flash of Spinjitzu before Nya could even register that they were leaving. Zane ran to the chain hanging down from the Bounty, scurrying up it and revving up the engines. Nya moved to follow him, but was stopped short by Jay’s hand, which was still clutched in hers. She caught his anxiety-widened eyes.

“Nya, I have a bad feeling about this thing,” he said, his voice almost lost in the storm. 

Nya scrunched her eyebrows together, pushing a tentative smile to her lips as she squeezed Jay’s hand. “We’ll be fine, right? We always are.” She knew that Jay wasn’t convinced, because she wasn’t even convincing herself. A terrible sense of dread was swirling in her gut. “Now, let’s go save the world.”

Jay screwed his eyes shut and nodded. Nya pulled Jay’s gloved hand to her lips, brushing a kiss along the back of it before letting go so Jay could dash to his mech, which was parked in the courtyard. She squeezed her own eyes shut, hoping that she had the confidence to fight the mysterious storm ripping open the sky above them. She heard Jay’s mech take off and took it as a sign to leap up to the Bounty so she and Zane could focus on freezing and flooding the swirling clouds of mystery. 

Nya had almost reached the chain when Jay’s bright blue mech landed in front of her, stopping her in her tracks. She looked up at the cockpit, confusion etched onto her face as Jay jumped down, grabbing Nya’s shoulder to pull her in for a kiss, cupping her cheek and running his fingers through her hair as she grabbed his waist, understanding immediately and holding him close. She memorized the feeling of his touch, praying to the First Master that she wouldn’t have to rely on her memory after the battle was over. Jay pulled away, pressing his forehead to Nya’s, their bangs tangling together. “I love you.”

Nya inhaled the warmth of his breath. “Be safe,” she murmured, kissing him again to silently return his words. She hoped it wouldn’t be their last one as she wrapped her arms around his back, holding Jay close to her. She could feel his heart hammering against his ribcage. She didn’t want to pull back, she didn’t want to have to save the world. But it was what they did. 

Jay was the first one to gently tug away from her, caressing her hair with his gloved hand and raking his glassy eyes over her face one last time before jumping back into the mech and flying off, leaving Nya to climb up onto the Bounty, hurling balls of water as they flew away. 

In the years following the storm they had since called the merge, in the years without Jay, Nya remembered the feeling of their last kiss. The feeling of Jay’s chapped lips pressed against hers, his breath hot and his hands shaking as they touched her with impossible gentleness, wordlessly showing her how much he loved her. In his absence, Nya found herself wishing she had told him how she felt the same. She kicked herself for not being braver, for not telling him with her words that she loved him, too. 

Until it was too late.

Chapter Text

“Jay! Jay! ” Nya shouted through the darkened street, cupping her hand around her mouth to amplify her voice as she called out for him in the crowd. She swore she saw his auburn curls poking out from the cluster of people, recognizable even after years of separation. Nya bolted forward, pushing past people who were walking too slowly in her search for Jay, pulling the attention of someone with identical hair to him, but a completely different face. She apologized, pulling away and whipping her head around, her heart racing. “Jay?” 

Nothing. 

Nya sighed, tears pushing behind her eyes as she made her way back to the dormitory assigned to the team, curling herself on the cot, letting the ache of missing Jay gnaw at her insides. After six years of the feeling, she had gotten used to it. It was part of her nightly routine.

The next night, when Nya saw Jay for real, her mind threw her through a rollercoaster of emotions. Her heart skittered to a halt out of pure shock, blood pulsing through her limbs as she took in her Yin standing before her. She was surprised that he didn’t run into her arms and kiss her all over, but she was more than willing to be the first to reach out for an embrace. She grinned as she stepped forward. 

“Jay! I knew I saw you!”

“What are you talking about? I’ve never seen you before in my life!” Jay yelled across the arena, shaking his head at her, his eyebrows pulled low in a glare. Nya stopped dead in her tracks, staring at him with disbelief. 

From the spectator area, Nya could hear Cole’s attempt to understand the situation. “Jay could never forget Nya… or any of us. Is that some sort of fake Jay? Some loser in a Jay wig?”

As Jay pulled down his mask and prepared to fight Nya in pursuit of the dagger on top of the tower in the middle of the arena, Nya found herself wishing that it was a fake Jay standing before her. Maybe the real Jay was out there somewhere, searching for her. Still in love with her, waiting for her to find him after the merge. But as the Jay standing in front of her revved up his powers, lightning crackling around his fists, Nya knew that it was her Yin. 

He didn’t remember. He wanted to hurt her. He was lunging at her, swinging his leg as she jumped out of the way, trying to hit him back with a burst of water but coming up short. 

“You had a clear shot and didn’t take it! Are you a terrible ninja?” Jay spat, his voice patronizing. Nya looked down at her hand, at her useless fingertips. 

“I don’t wanna hurt you, Jay. We care too much for each other!” 

“Speak for yourself, lady!” Jay said, releasing a battle cry as he sprang forward, roundhouse kicking her in the middle. As they continued circling one another, occasionally throwing a punch or a burst of elemental power, Jay explained the life he had lived since the merge. He had woken up without memories, had been led to the Administration, where he worked dutifully until he finally managed to escape. He praised Lord Ras for saving him, telling Nya that he would win the tournament by whatever means necessary to make it up to him. 

Then, he pulled a wolf mask over his face, waiting for Ras to shatter his soul so he could fully fight back against Nya. 

Her heart cracked as she watched his eyes glow red, watched him be engulfed by the Shatterspin that Egalt and Rontu had taught Nya how to overcome. She knew what she needed to do, but she didn’t want to have to do it to Jay. 

“You don’t give me any choice, Jay,” Nya muttered, pulling her azure bandana to cover her face and focusing hard as she moved from Spinjitzu into Rising Dragon, watery blue engulfing her as she crested over the arena, then dove into Jay’s red and black Shatterspin. She heard him scream, frustrated, as she hurled herself toward him, knocking him off his feet and onto the side of the arena as she landed on the splintered wood. She stared down at him, fighting the urge to run forward and make sure he was alright. 

“Nya! Focus on the dagger!” Lloyd yelled from the spectator booth on the edge of the arena. Nya turned her attention to the dark night sky, to the dagger floating at the top of the illuminated tower. With a final glance in Jay’s direction, seeing that he was still picking himself up off the floor, gritting his teeth with glowing red eyes. Then, she began her ascent. 

As she threw herself up the tower, Nya felt blasts of lightning shoot past her. She knew that Jay was aiming for her, going after her instead of the dagger that would grant him the victory he shattered his soul to receive. 

He didn’t remember her, and he was dead set on winning no matter what. She may not have wanted to hurt him, but he had no problem with hurting her. 

Nya threw a ball of water behind her, forcing Jay to jump out of the way as she made her way to the top of the tower, snatching the knife from its position on the top of the pillar. Roby flew by, declaring her victorious as the tower descended into the ground. The teenage master of ceremonies seemed not to be able to read the open air of the room as Jay looked down, his red eyes drooping as his powers were tugged from his body and transferred into hers. Nya looked down, her lips trembling as Roby commanded her to cast a bolt of lightning into the sky, which she did without looking at the master of lightning. She only reached for him once Roby moved on to the next pairing, watching as Jay approached Ras and the rest of his team, only to be cast away like he was worth nothing to them.

But he was worth something to her. He was everything to her.

Nya stepped forward, attempting to penetrate the high walls that Jay had built around himself since the merge. “Jay?” He glanced at her, then rolled his eyes, his shoulders slumping. But he didn’t walk away. “I know you lost your memory, but you need to know the truth…” she swallowed, searching for the bravery to speak the words she had never said out loud. “I love you… I will always love you.”

She reached forward, taking his hand, but Jay shoved her back before she could fully wrap their fingers together. “And I will always hate you.”

Boom .

Nya was back on the street, standing in her pajamas as she searched the crowd for Jay. She had the strangest feeling of deja vu, determined to find his wild hair in the crowd. “Jay!” she shouted, dashing forward. As soon as she almost reached someone with Jay’s exact hair style, she found herself tumbling forward into the arena with no idea how she got there. 

Her heart pounded as she saw Jay for the first time since the merge, but it wasn’t… right? She had just seen him, she had just fought him… hadn’t she? 

“Jay, I knew I saw you!” she said, taking a step forward with a wide, hopeful smile. 

“What are you talking about? I’ve never seen you before in my life!” Jay shouted across the arena to her, shaking his head as he shot daggers at her with his glare. Nya paused, her feet planted firmly on the ground. She had heard that before, hadn't she? In her vision back in the cave? 

“Is that some sort of fake Jay? Some loser in a Jay wig?” She had heard that, too. 

Nya turned back to Jay, her head spinning with confusion as he pulled down his mask, just like she had seen him do before. As they fought, she felt herself falling into the same moves as she had the last time they had sparred. She tried again to hit him with a blob of water, but she still couldn’t conjure the power to hurt him.

“You had a clear shot and didn’t take it! Are you a terrible ninja?”

“I don’t wanna hurt you! We care too much for each other!” 

“Speak for yourself, lady ,” Jay spat, leaping forward to hit her. Nya winced, picking herself up off the floor as Jay spoke to her, filling her in on the life he had led since the merge. No memories, the Administration, the escape, Lord Ras. The wolf mask was pulled over his freckled face, his goodness was shattered before her eyes as she stood helplessly, watching it happen. She couldn’t shake the familiar feeling as she watched, horror widening her eyes. 

You don’t have a choice, Nya . She thought, screwing her eyes shut as she transitioned from Spinjitzu to Rising Dragon, shooting into the air and then plunging down to the arena floor, casting Jay’s angry body aside. Focus on the dagger . 

Nya leapt up, scaling the tower as Jay followed close behind, furiously trying to stop her with zaps of lightning. She skillfully dodged them, knowing where they would fall before they even left his fingertips. She snatched the dagger, victorious, then received Jay’s powers as her own. She hoped something would be different when she reached for Jay after he was rejected by Ras and the team.

“Jay. I know you lost your memory, but you need to know the truth,” she searched his face, his tightened jaw and his low brows as she found her words. “I love you. I will always love you.” 

It didn’t change the outcome. 

“And I will always hate you.”

Boom . 

Back to the street. Nya looked around, disoriented. What’s happening right now? Why am I back here again? 

Only something was different, it was moments before. This time, she caught sight of Jay’s face, so she knew where to run to follow him. But she got caught in the crowd, and he was lost. So she ended up in the arena, fighting with Jay. “I’ve never seen you before in my life!” “Is that some loser in a Jay wig?” “Focus on the dagger!” “I will always hate you .”

Boom . 

“Jay!” Nya shouted, pushing through the crowd. Jay turned at the sound of his name, his eyes wide as he searched the bustling people on the street. She threw herself into his arms, but he pushed her away. 

“Who are you ?” 

Shit . She ended up in the arena yet again. Jay’s eyes turned red. He didn’t remember her, and he would hate her forever. 

Boom . 

This time, she knew what not to do. She approached Jay slowly, only having sprinted to him to catch up before he disappeared into Ras’ team’s dormitory. She tapped him on the shoulder, but didn’t know what to say when he turned and looked at her, raising her eyebrows when she just opened and closed her mouth at him dumbly. 

Back to the arena. 

“I will always hate you .”

Boom . 

“Come on,” Nya muttered, wishing she could shake free from the endless cycle of fruitlessly searching for her Yin, constantly failing to reach out and pull him back from the edge. 

Nya dashed forward, slowing her pace once she got to Jay as to not scare him. It was like approaching a wounded animal that would bite back at any moment. “Excuse me,” she whispered, tapping him on the shoulder. He turned, his eyes searching her face. But he didn’t push her away, he didn’t glare at her. It shocked her stupid, and she said the first thing she could think of. “I… um… I saw you at the banquet, and I was wondering… how do you feel about the color blue?” 

Jay’s face faltered for a second, flickering between confusion and subtle irritation before settling on quiet surprise. A ghost of a smile drifted across his lips. 

“Why are you asking me that?”

Nya shook her head slightly, expecting to fall back into the arena, to have failed again. But she didn’t. “Just… answer the question, master of lightning.” 

Jay paused, a crease forming between his eyebrows. He shrugged. “It’s my favorite color, why?” 

Nya grinned, a flutter of hope blooming in her chest. Maybe this time, things would be different. Maybe this time, she would get it right. 

Chapter Text

“I don’t like it when they fight,” Nya whispered into Jay’s sweater, busying her fingertips among the fabric. “It makes me feel…”

“Off?” Jay prompted, his arms around Nya’s shoulders pulling her in as her gaze wandered through the window, to the furious thunderstorm pounding outside. “Yeah, me too.”

The storm had come on suddenly. Jay and Nya had been training in the courtyard, slinging playful insults at each other as they sparred, when a crack of thunder split the sky and it opened up in pounding rain that drenched them in seconds. Their elements never seemed to realize when their arguments were lighthearted. The two of them bolted inside, cackling as the rain slammed against the roof, both soaked to the bone with it. They stripped to their underclothes so as to not track puddles through the monastery (no funny business though, the entire team was home) and made their way to their own rooms to change into dry, comfortable outfits before meeting back up in the dining room, where Jay sat on the bench with Nya in his lap, leaning against his torso. A bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, the same electrical current running through Jay’s hands and into Nya’s skin. She winced slightly.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay, I know it’s not your fault,” Nya murmured as she ran her fingers along Jay’s arm, covered in silky blue fabric, her attention still on the storm as it raged on. 

“Do you ever think about… us and them?” Jay asked quietly. Nya tilted her head back enough to look at him, confusion lining her eyes and prompting him to continue. “You know, lightning and water. Not really a great combination.”

Nya scrunched her eyebrows, thinking about it. Sometimes she felt like destiny was constantly working against them, constantly pulling them apart just when they found their way back to each other. She had once told Jay that their relationship was proof that the greatest love stories always end in tragedy. 

But she also loved him like she had never loved anyone. 

“Water conducts electricity,” Nya said quietly, fiddling with Jay’s electric fingertips. He shifted to look down at her, but her eyes were still on the rain. “It’s dangerous, sure. It doesn’t seem like they should work. But nothing can keep them apart once they’re together.” Jay squeezed her gently. “Do you get what I’m saying?”

Instead of answering, Jay shifted Nya’s shoulders gently, cupping her face as he kissed her. She smiled into his lips, which buzzed with his element just enough to send shivers down her spine. Nya moved her hand up to hold his face in return, her fingertips running along his damp face and into his wet hair. Outside, the storm slowed. The lightning retreated into the clouds, the rain shifted to a light drizzle, then stopped as the clouds parted. 

Their elements finally took the hint. There was no keeping lightning and water apart.

Chapter Text

“Anyone who likes Jay that much can’t be normal,” Kai said, squinting up at the pixelated sky above them. Nya put a hand on her hip and rolled her eyes, preparing to snap at him when another player stopped her. 

“Freeze!” he called across the alley, holding up a blaster with his hoodie pulled down low to cover his face. “You better talk, before Mr Ginormous here does the talking.”

“Oh, right. The password. What was it again?” Cole asked, turning to Lloyd, who shrugged. “Mr Snugglewomp? Or… um.. Fuddlewimp… no, that’s not it-”

“Mr Cuddlywomp,” Nya cut in with the name of Jay’s childhood stuffed animal, her guiding hope that they were headed in the right direction to find him in the game. 

The player lowered his weapon, pulling the covering away from his face. “The League sent you, eh? Lemme guess, you’re here to see Superstar Rockin’ Jay?” the quartet nodded instinctively, even though they had no idea what most of his words meant, and the other player waved them over to the blank wall of a nearby building. “C’mon, before someone sees us,” he said as the cloaked wall opened up, revealing a small hanger. 

“Woah. This place is awesome!”

“The name’s Scott,” the player said once the door was shut behind them, weaving his way through the tools and machine parts scattered around the floor. “My garage is hidden by a level 999 stealth barrier. Keeps the red visors out,” he explained, leaning casually against the massive tire of a nearby vehicle. “The League of Jay keep my secret, so I help them fix their vehicles and weapons. It’s pretty symbiotic.”

“League of Jay?” Kai asked, his brows crinkling together anxiously as he turned his attention to Scott. 

“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” Scott asked, walking to the back corner of the garage and pushing a button on the wall to open it up into another concealed passageway. “Follow me, it’ll make sense once you see it for yourself.”

The team followed Scott through a dark tunnel, which Cole questioned the safety of before they were spat out into another dark room, filled with glowing blue lights and packed with blue-clad Jays. Nya gasped as she took it all in, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of replicas of her Yin that surrounded her, their clothes representing each phase of his life since she had met him. 

“I can’t believe this,” Kai muttered, his jaw nearly on the floor. “Are we in a nightmare?”

Nya glared at him and grabbed him by the crook of the elbow, dragging him further into the underground club. “Come on. We have to find our Jay.” 

“How are we even supposed to know which one’s our Jay, Nya?” 

“I don’t know, but I-”

Nya was cut off by a deep voice pumping through the loud speakers in the club, pulling the attention of the League members to the stage in the middle of the large room. “Attention, League of Jay. It is time for the arrival of our hero, our inspiration, the reason for our very existence! Superstar Rockin’ Jay!” 

As the announcer stepped to the side of the stage, a guitar riff signaled the entrance of the group’s leader, who rose up on a podium, covered in purple light and shredding on the instrument in his hands. The skin of his avatar was pearly white and covered in bright blue stars and triangles. His robes were glamourous and covered in gemstones, with the neckline plunging down to end amongst his abs. The entire ninja team gasped as Jay jumped down from the podium, basking in the glory of the applause and handing his guitar off to the stage hand, who bowed as he took the instrument. Jay’s eyes scanned the crowd of his followers briefly before his attention landed on his friends and his face lit up in a more genuine smile than he had worn for the League members. 

“Guys! It’s really you!” he exclaimed, running forward to embrace Cole and Nya, who were still gaping at him. “I’ve been waiting for you! Isn’t this place awesome ?” 

“Yeah, I guess. But how did you get here? Why are all these people dressed like you?” Lloyd asked, his eyes catching on someone whose avatar reflected Jay after he had been infected with Serpentine poison. 

“They’re the League of Jay!” Jay said, as if it were enough of an explanation. When the team just stared back at him blankly, he leaned in and lowered his voice. “To be honest, I don’t know why they like me so much. But I’m not complaining about it.”

“Right,” Lloyd said, turning his attention instead to look around the room. Kai wandered off to sit down, seeming to be overwhelmed by the entire situation, and Cole followed him, patting his back supportively. 

Nya’s eyes were focused on Jay, wandering down his outfit and all of the skin it exposed. It hadn’t even been that long since she had seen him, but she had already been filled with a gnawing ache for him in her gut. Seeing him again, even in the odd situation, filled her stomach with warmth. When Jay met her eyes, his glowing golden in the skin of his avatar, Nya could tell that he could read the want clear from her mind. She was sure he felt it, too. 

“You want me to show you around?” Jay asked, the question pointed at Nya as Lloyd was cornered by a few League members who were thrilled to meet the green ninja. Nya chewed on her lip and nodded, taking Jay’s hand as he pulled her around the club, taking a tantalizingly long time with the tour before leading her backstage. “I missed you,” he said as they stepped into the green room. “It’s been a long time.”

Nya chuckled. “I just saw you two days ago.”

“Two days for you, maybe. But time passes differently here,” Jay said, putting his hands on Nya’s hips as she stepped forward to meet him by the door. “Did you really think I managed to get all these people to love me in two days ?”

Nya grinned. “I mean, you do have that effect on people.”

“I guess I do,” Jay said, his own smile creeping across his face as his eyeline dropped down to Nya’s lips, then back to meet her eyes. “But, to me, it only matters with you.”

“You’re cheesy,” Nya said, caressing the lapel of his costume, grinning as her fingers glided over the star shaped pin that he had fastened there, which wore a wide smile. Then, she moved her hands toward the center of Jay’s chest, feeling the warmth of the muscles above his heart. 

“Maybe so. Maybe I’m just in love with you,” Jay said, putting a hand on Nya’s, holding them together. She rolled her eyes, blush threatening to creep onto her cheeks, then captured his lips with hers, instigating their long-awaited reunion. Jay’s stance loosened and he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling Nya in as her hands moved up to caress his pale blue cheeks. She had missed him so much, even though he had only been in the video game for two days in the real world. After a few more tender moments, Jay pulled away slightly. “I wanted to do that as soon as I saw you in here,” he whispered, his breath warm against Nya’s lips. She grinned. 

“Why didn’t you?”

Jay tilted his head slightly, pecking another kiss on Nya’s lips before pulling back further, his hands clasping together around her lower back while hers settled around his neck. “I didn’t wanna parade you around in front of the League.”

“Oh, so you didn’t wanna kiss me in front of your groupies?” Nya teased. Jay rolled his head back, grinning when he looked back at her. “Should I be jealous?”

“Ya know, I don’t really have groupies. I mostly have fans,” Jay said quietly, kissing her again. Nya melted into his touch, his hands catching her before she could fall to the floor. Then he tugged away again. “And no fan gets this special treatment. Just you.”

“Good.” Nya said, reaching forward to claim her own kisses. She wasn’t sure if she even had a body anymore, if anything was real besides them being made up of 1s and 0s. What she was sure of was the electrifying feeling, regardless of her physical being, as she pressed her lips into Jay’s. His hand made its way to cup her face, running delicately through the chunks of her hair that had broken free from her classic ponytail when a persistent knock cut through the haze of the greenroom. Jay pulled back, blue lips slightly parted as he groaned, turning his head toward the door. 

“What is it?”

“Red visors approaching Scott’s garage, sir.” Jay sighed, tucking Nya’s hair behind her ear and swiping his thumb along her cheek, grinning when she leaned into his palm. Jay clicked a button on his wrist to open up his avatar stats, unlocking and opening the door in one smooth movement. Another Jay stood there, sporting a ripped-up gi from Jay’s time in the First Realm. 

“Have they gotten in?” Jay asked, straightening slightly as he launched into the leadership role the League of Jay had thrust him into. Butterflies erupted in Nya’s stomach as she watched.

“No, but Scott wanted you to be aware for when you and your friends continue your quest,” the other Jay said. “They’re waiting outside. I suggest you take the back door.”
“Thanks,” Jay said, nodding to the League member, who turned to leave before pausing.

“You must be Nya,” he said, focusing on Nya by Jay’s side. She nodded as Jay wrapped an arm around her waist, letting it settle on her hip. “It’s an honor,” he continued with a small bow. “Superstar Rockin’ Jay has told us all about you.”
With that, the League member turned on his heel and rejoined the crowd outside. Nya turned to Jay, pulling away enough so she could raise an eyebrow at him. “You told your cult about me?”

Jay grinned, slipping his hand into hers so they could join the others and flee through the back exit. “How could I not? You’re Superstar Rockin’ Nya.”

Chapter Text

For the first time in a long time, Jay woke up clawing himself out of nightmares. It was the middle of the darkest night of the year, and he was alone. 

The nightmares had been more manageable when he woke up with Nya by his side, more times than not after she had woken up to them, too. But since she had merged, had saved his life and left him behind, waking up just felt pointless.

Jay took deep breaths, putting his hand directly over his heart. The weight helped its beating return to a somewhat normal rhythm alongside his breathing, and after a moment he sat up in the darkness. He was in Nya’s room. He hadn’t left it since everyone had gone home after the ceremony. That was three days ago.

The room was eerie. Not because he hadn’t ever woken up in it - usually he and Nya would switch off on whose room they would spend the night in, holding each other as they went to sleep to ward off the nightmares and waking up with tangled limbs and morning breath - but because Nya wasn’t beside him. She wasn’t wrapping her arm around his middle, pulling him in as she dozed, she wasn’t kicking him in her sleep, she wasn’t holding him now that he had startled himself awake. She was gone. 

Jay didn’t have any more tears left in him. He couldn’t remember the last time he had drank any water, not wanting it to trickle back into his lungs. Nya wasn’t there to save him.

A horrible, stomach-turning thought made its way into his mind. 

If he died on land choking on tap water, he would never be able to see her again. If he inhaled the deep blue water of the sea, maybe he would.  

A lump rose in Jay’s throat, nonexistent tears pushing against the back of his eyes. He squeezed them shut, shoving his fists into them and rubbing ferociously. The thought didn’t subside, the feelings didn’t change. They tugged at his mind, pulsing through every nerve in his body, forcing him to climb out of Nya’s bed. He tiptoed across the mess of her floor, left behind from before they had gotten on the submarine to try to resolve the issues with her powers. That all felt so far away now. Everything felt so far away. 

Jay pulled on a knitted sweater that Nya had left behind, taking in the scent of her that clung to it. Then, he grabbed a pair of boots that he had left by the door, numbly slipping his feet into them and lacing them up, not feeling anything as he quietly slipped through the door and made his way to the hanger, where his Storm Glider was parked among mechs. 

He didn’t even think about saying goodbyes. He didn’t think about leaving a note. He didn’t think about Kai or Cole or Zane or Lloyd, he didn’t think about what his parents would think. 

All he could think about was Nya. He had to see her again. 

The Glider revved up quietly, an addition that came in handy not only when trying to make a sneaky getaway on the job, but also when leaving life behind, and Jay steered it into the sky. He flew for a long time, his thoughts continuing to spiral out of control, deeper and darker than ever before. He didn’t even know where he was going until he flew over the lighthouse. 

Their lighthouse. 

Still in a daze Jay flew down, his eyes running over the sparkling water as the waves reflected the stars above him. Would she see all that he would do for her, all that he would give up? Would she let him join her, Yin and Yang forever and ever?

Jay climbed out of the Glider and walked across the sand, his eyes focused on the crashing waves, as though the ocean had put him under a spell. He was sure that it was Nya. He had never been able to take his eyes off of her. 

He continued walking down the shore, not feeling when his boots were splashed, not paying attention when cool water rushed against his waist, not holding his breath when his curls went underwater. He kept his eyes open, the salty water not stinging. It was just like all of the tears he had cried in the days since Nya merged. He was used to the feeling. He looked around the water, searching for the watery figure that had left him behind on the rooftop, giving up all that she was for him. 

The water began pushing down on him, the air dissipated from his lungs. Good. Now it’s finally over . Jay could feel himself growing lightheaded, his vision blurring on the edges as he accepted the after-lifetime with the love of his life. 

Just before Jay blacked out, a force from below scooped him up, a turbine of water pushing him to the surface of the sea. He fought back, trying to swim back down into the deeps, but he couldn’t fight the ocean. 

His head broke the surface, and Jay instinctively gulped in the air. He looked around, his vision becoming clearer as he breathed and treaded water, searching for any semblance of Nya within the water to no avail. After a moment, he felt himself being pushed towards the shore by the cascading waves. 

When he was deposited on the shoreline, Jay saw her: a watery blue version of the only girl he had ever loved hovering on the horizon, one with the sea as the waves swirled around her. Jay choked out a sob, coughing out seawater. 

“Nya… please. I love you!” he clawed at the damp sand. “Take me with you!”

Nya shook her watery head, her entire form rippling in the darkness. Jay took a deep, shaking breath as another wail escaped him. “I love you, Jay. But you have to go home. Your life is too precious to be thrown away for me.”

“No!” Jay shrieked, willing everything he had to cast his voice towards the ocean. “No, Nya, it’s not! I love you… you’re all I have!”

Nya shook her head again as she began fading into the water. “We both know that’s not true, Jay. You’ve never needed me.”

She was saying what she knew would keep him on dry land, but that didn’t mean she believed her own words. But she couldn't watch him die at the hands of her element. Not again.

Nya continued drifting into the horizon, disappearing into the darkness. “No! Don’t leave me, Nya!” Jay cried into the sea, feeling as though his heart was filling with water as he watched Nya turn, shaking her head once again as she slipped back into the shape of water. 

Jay threw himself back into the waves, running through them as they crashed against the shoreline, swimming desperately to catch up with Nya. Every time he put his head underwater, her watery touch pushed him back to land. 

She would not let him die in her watery arms. 

As the sun began peeking over the horizon, Jay gave up, knowing that the stubbornness he loved Nya for wouldn’t allow him to fill his lungs with seawater. He crawled up the shoreline, collapsing into the sand and sobbing into it until he had nothing left to cry. Until the sun rose and fell once again, and he finally mustered up all of his energy to climb up into the lighthouse, where he promised himself he would remain until Nya came back to him.

Chapter Text

He had gone out of order. 

In the weeks leading up to asking Nya to be his Yang, Jay had been a ball of nerves, running over the plan in his mind, making sure that he hadn’t forgotten anything that would take away from the perfection of the moment. But, even with all his careful planning and preparation, Jay had skillfully avoided one of the quintessential (if a bit archaic) proposal moments: asking the parents.

It wasn’t just that Jay was scared. That would be weird. It was just that a) he had no idea how to get in contact with Ray and Maya, b) he had immediately considered Kai as the one to ask for Nya’s hand, and c) he was scared. 

So, when Nya begrudgingly told him that her parents would be visiting to help with her powers, which had gone haywire, panic ran in an electric current down his spine. He could count on his hands the amount of times he had spoken to Ray and Maya, with the outcome being a singular thumbs-down, which he was sure Nya’s parents would give him when they found out that they were engaged. That, or a harsh middle finger in his face. 

When Ray and Maya burst through the gates of the monastery, with Maya running directly to Nya to sweep her stiff body into a tight hug and Ray following close behind with a pile of suitcases (how long were they staying for?), Jay ducked behind his teammates so he wouldn’t be spotted. Thankfully, Maya was too busy rambling on about how good it was to see Nya and how sorry she was that everything was happening with her powers and how they were going to work it out together, to notice anyone but her two children. Her gaze didn't even pass over the cowering lightning ninja as she pulled Nya into the monastery. Before she was tugged through the door, Nya looked over her shoulder, her wide eyes pleading for Jay to save her.

She somehow managed to get away after an hour of her mother doting on her, telling her that she was going to wash up before dinner and then sneaking into her room, where Jay was hiding out. Nya had been digging through her drawers of clothes, trying to exert some control over the perfect outfit. The pile of discarded options around her had been steadily growing for the last hour. 

“Arghhh!” she groaned, slamming the dresser drawer shut and stepping over the pile, launching herself onto her bed beside Jay, flopping down on her back with a huff, throwing her arm over her eyes to block out the world. Jay turned, looking down at her with a tiny smile. 

“So… not going well?”

Nya yanked her arm away, shooting Jay a look. Her eye twitched, but he knew that her outpouring of emotions wasn’t directed at him. He was just her soundboard. “She’s just so… ugh!”

“Yeah. Moms, am I right?” Nya huffed out a chuckle, turning her head to face him. He took on a more serious tone, his own nerves bubbling to the surface of his mind. “Do you… um. How do you think we should tell them?” Jay asked, gesturing to the pendant hanging against Nya’s gi. She looked down at it, her fingers brushing along the metal. 

Nya shrugged. “I was thinking something like: ‘hey Mom and Dad, this is Jay. We’re getting married’.”

“But… do you think they’ll be mad that I didn’t, y’know, call them or anything beforehand?” Jay asked, wringing his hands. Nya glanced at him, taking in his anxiety, and sat up. She scooched across her comforter to sit beside him on her bed, taking his trembling hands in hers. 

“If they are, I don’t care. We’re not close... I barely know them,” she said with a sigh, remembering a childhood without her parents. It had hardened her, forced her into independence. She shook her head, smiling at Jay. “All that matters to me is what you think, and I highly doubt you’re having second thoughts.”

Jay shook his head, a tiny smile creeping onto his lips. “Never, ever.”

Nya pressed a quick kiss to his lips, pulling away and leaving him wanting. “Okay, then. We really should get down there, otherwise they’re gonna think you’re hiding out like a weirdo. Which… wouldn’t be wrong,” she said teasingly, standing up and pulling Jay along with her, keeping their hands firmly squeezed together as they walked to the kitchen. Nya knew that her mom was flitting around the space, she had smelled the cooking seaweed and tofu from across the monastery.

Between their intertwined hands, either Jay or Nya’s hand was sweating. Neither of them could tell whose it was, since one was just as nervous as the other as they stepped into the dining room, looking into the kitchen.

”Um… Mom?” Nya said quietly, pulling her mother’s attention away from the stove. Maya turned around, smiling once she saw her daughter. Her eyes flickered momentarily to her and Jay’s interlocked hands, and Jay swore he saw her lips quirk up. He latched onto it, taking her grin as a good sign.

”Hi, Nya! And hello Jay, honey,” Maya said, turning off the burner and taking the cast iron skillet off of the stove, leaving it on a hot pad on the counter as she walked over to her daughter, wrapping her in a tight hug. Nya’s fingers clamped down on Jay’s hand, startled by her mother’s touch.

”Are you busy? I was hoping to talk to you and… um, Dad,” Nya said over Maya’s shoulder, squeaking slightly as her mom hugged her tighter. Jay swiped his thumb along her wrist, then let go so she could delicately pry herself from her mom’s arms, flashing her a nervous smile.

”Of course I’m not busy, honey! I always have time for my girl,” she said, pinching Nya’s cheeks. Nya scrunched her eyebrows closer together. 

“Right…” she said quietly. “I think he’s in the game room with Kai, can we talk in there?”

Maya nodded, leading the way down the hallway. Despite not having lived in the monastery since she was the Master of Water, she walked around like she owned the place. Nya turned to Jay as they followed her mom, her chocolatey eyes full of nerves, all of the talk about ‘not caring what her parents think’ seeming to have vanished. Jay wiped the sweat (it turned out it had been his all along) off of his palm and reached for Nya’s hand, which she grabbed with trembling fingers as they rounded the corner into the game room.

”Oh, I got the power up! Get ready, Dad!”

“Rodger that,” Ray muttered, his attention locked in on the video game as his and Kai’s avatars bounced around it, knocking out two-dimensional bad guys over and over again with a simultaneous Fi-yah! and Scorcher! from the current and former Masters of Fire.

”Hey, um, Dad. Can I talk to you?” Nya asked from the doorway as Maya walked into the game room, plopping down on the armchair beside the couch.

”Oh, hey Nya. Can it wait? We’re about to break the new record,” her dad murmured, his eyes still glued to the screen. Jay’s fingers tightened around Nya’s palm, and she shot him a look that clearly stated this is how you are all the time.

Kai’s eyes flickered from the screen to Nya, then to Jay, then back to Nya. He raised hs eyebrow, silently asking if she needed backup. Nya squeezed Jay’s hand and shook her head. She had all the help she needed, all that was left was her father’s attention. Which Kai could help with. The Master of Fire paused the game and stood up with a casual stretch, ignoring his dad’s protest from the couch. 

“Well, I’m gonna fuel up. Dad, you want me to grab you anything from the kitchen?”

”But… Kai. The record!” Ray said, gesturing at the screen. Kai shook his head down at him.

”I’ll be like… ten minutes. It’ll give you and Nya some time to catch up,” Kai said, looking down at their dad with a purposeful look, widening his eyes slightly and then shooting a glance in Jay and Nya’s direction. Ray seemed to take the hint, putting down his controller on the coffee table.

Kai moved to exit the room, stopping as he passed Jay and Nya’s, resting his hand on her shoulder. “Good luck, sis.” Nya nodded in thanks as Kai exited the room, her tongue feeling like it was made of cement. She swallowed hard and pulled Jay through the doorway and over the threshold, where they ended up standing on the other side of the coffee table from her parents, shoulder to shoulder.

“So… um. Obviously a lot has changed since the last time we saw each other,” Nya said, choosing to cut right to the chase rather than dilly dally, which was sure to only heighten her anxiety. “A few years ago… Jay asked me to be his Yang.” Nya reached into the neckline of her gi, pulling out her half of their matching pendants.” So, when we finally catch a break from ninja-ing… we’re getting married.”

Jay flashed a nervous smile at Ray and Maya, hoping that one of them wasn’t about to pull out a shotgun and shoot him in the face.

The moment never came.

”Oh… honey,” Maya said, her face consumed by a soft smile as she stood up, stepping across the room quickly and pulling Jay and Nya into a hug, nearly knocking their heads together in the embrace. “That is such wonderful news!”

Nya and Jay’s matching stiff spines relaxed as Ray stood up from the couch, joint the group with a grin. When Maya pulled back, her eyes were sparkling with unshed tears that she had to clear her throat to relieve. Ray extended his hand to Jay, who looked down at it, shocked by the gesture before he shook it, a small smile making its way to his lips as Ray clapped him on the back, shaking a relieved laugh out of the Master of Lightning. 

“So, you’re not mad that I didn’t… I don’t know, call or write to you after? That I didn’t tell you sooner?” Nya asked, reaching into Ray’s hug when he stretched his arms out to her, glancing at her mom over her shoulder. 

“No, of course not.”

”And you’re not mad that Jay didn’t ask first?” Jay shot Nya a look, his anxiety re-spiking at the thought of Nya jogging Ray and Maya’s memories about not receiving a call for their blessing, giving her parents a reason to not like him.

”No! Not at all.”

Nya sighed, relieved. “Good. He was worried you weren’t gonna like him.”

”Nya!” Jay hissed, widening his eyes at her. She gave him an apologetic squint in return, tilting her head slightly. 

“How could we not? Look at the two of you,” Maya said, her lips quivering as she gestured to Nya and Jay, putting her hand on her daughter’s cheek. Surprisingly - even to herself - Nya didn’t pull away from her mother’s gentle, warm touch. “We may not have been around for most of your life, but this is still the happiest I’ve ever seen you.”

”Plus, Kai’s been dropping ‘Jay’s a good guy’ hints all afternoon.” Ray shrugged as Nya laughed, imagining Kai telling stories about Jay picking up cars and saving cats from trees like a cartoon hero. “They were peppered in between complaints about how annoying you are, but I got the point.”

”Yeah… he’s pretty obnoxious,” Nya said, snaking her arm around Jay’s waist and continuing before he could open his mouth to complain. “But I still love him.” Jay looked back at her, his lips twitching into a smile as his electric blue eyes softened. Then, Nya turned to her parents, who had been watching the couple with their own gooey smiles. “And I’m sure you guys will, too.”

Chapter Text

“I don’t think this is going to work,” Nya said, leaning against the arcade game as Kai slammed his fist into the buttons, his other hand working with precision to shoot the on-screen aliens. He didn’t take his eyes off the screen.

“It will. If you build it, they will come. Even if they have no memories.”

Nya sighed, pushing herself off the side of the game and walking around to join her brother, staring at the screen over his shoulder. She sure hoped he was right in his haywire plan to lure Jay to them through a video game, but she highly doubted it. 

It took Kai the entire afternoon to beat Jay’s high score. Nya grinned as she watched Kai bound around the arcade triumphantly, high-fiving Wyldfyre before he scooped Nya up in a hug, then turned back to the machine. 

“Ha ha! Oh, I finally beat ya, Jay!” he said as he typed his name into the top of the leaderboard. “Time for you to defend your high score!" 

The trio turned to the arcade door, as if Jay would magically appear out of thin air, ready to defend his title as video game master. But he didn’t. Nya sighed, walking to the edge of the platform that the game sat on and plopping down, her legs dangling off of the makeshift stage as she waited. She kept her eyes on the door, holding on to the tiny ember of hope in her heart that maybe, just maybe, Jay would appear. 

Across the merged lands, something shifted in Jay’s shattered heart. 

He was in the middle of collecting a sculpture from the Wyldness, which he had been told he had once resided in, but had no memory of (like everything else), when a shooting pain hit him in the chest. Jay grabbed at his chest, wondering if he was dying, then moved his fingers up to check his pulse through the layers concealing his face and neck. It was all normal.

“What the…” he muttered, his voice coming out garbled through the mask. Then, a buzz came from his wrist. Jay pulled back the sleeve of his uniform, the watch projecting a small holographic message that made his stomach flip. 

Galamorph X-Post. High Score: KAI - 9998.

“No!” Jay shrieked, kicking at a dirt clod in front of him. There were only a few things left in the world that he cared about, and his GXP high score was one of them. He would not stand for being dethroned. 

Jay unlatched the satchel from his back, slipping the statue into it and resituating it so that it wouldn’t get caught in his wings as he took off, zooming back to the abandoned cave-turned garage he had been camping out in. His delivery could wait. With his status, any client would learn to live with his lateness. 

As soon as he flew into the cave, Jay unclipped his wings, letting them fall to the ground, and threw off his bag, making a beeline to his workbench. It was covered in plans for unbuilt mechs and the blueprints to an impressive flying pirate ship - whoever had occupied the garage before the merge was clearly a fantastic engineer - and his own makeshift video game console, which he had been tinkering with ever since he had gone rogue. After months of hard work and not cutting his hair, Jay had been able to jig the machine so that it could connect to any GXP across the merged lands, making him reigning champion over all the realms. It was a title that he took very seriously. 

Jay sat back in the spinning chair behind his desk, his fingers flying along the buttons and knobs of the game, shooting two aliens at a time like he always did. Whoever was trying to dethrone him was going down.

“There’s someone playing remotely,” Kai murmured, his eyes glued to the flashing screen as an invisible force guided the shots across the game. “That style… two blasts after each rocket boost…” The ember of hope in Nya’s heart was fanned by her brother’s words. She couldn’t take her eyes off of the screen, as if Jay was about to pop out of it at any moment, hurling himself into her arms. “There’s only one person who plays GXP like that…”
Nya grinned, her smile uncontrollable as they watched the game continue. Somewhere out there, Jay was there. So close she could almost reach out and touch him.  

“So… are you not going to say who it is?” Wyldfyre asked after a moment. Kai rolled his eyes at her. 

“It’s Jay…” Nya said quietly as the last rocket blast pushed the player over the edge of Kai’s score into a new record. Kai groaned, complaining about how he had worked all day to make the achievement, but all Nya could focus on was the leaderboard as the player typed in their name. JAY - 9999 . Butterflies erupted in her stomach as she reached out, running her fingers along his name. “It’s really him.” 

“Take that, Kai ,” Jay muttered, placing the console down gingerly and leaning back on the chair, looping his hands behind his head and smiling smugly into the cave. It was weird, though. Even though he had beat the high score, the mission that distracted him from the mission he was being paid for, the strange feeling in his heart didn’t subside. It was like something was missing, something was wrong. 

Jay looked back at the video game, seeing his name glowing at the top of the leaderboard. It flickered slightly, as if someone was messing with the pixels somewhere far away. How odd.

Chapter Text

“It’s gonna rain,” Nya said, looking up at the clear sky. Jay looked at her sideways, unconvinced, but knew better than to say anything about Nya’s intuition with the weather. She knew better than anyone. Neither of them made an effort to get up and find shelter, even with her prediction. Nya kept her eyes on the sky, awaiting the storm.

Like clockwork, clouds rolled into the sky above the clearing, darkening with condensation before spilling to the ground. Jay chuckled as the rain shifted from a gentle drizzle to full-on pouring in seconds.

“You were right,” he said with a chuckle, standing up from the picnic blanket and moving to collect their things before they got soaked. Even though they were positioned under the trees at the edge of the clearing, the leaves weren’t enough to keep the water off of them. Nya stayed seated, her head tilted up to the sky, a smile on her damp face. Jay shook his wet curls before too much water got in his eyes, reaching out his hand. “C’mon, if we’re out here for too long, we’re gonna catch a cold.”

Nya turned her head slightly to Jay, looking at his hand as he reached out for her. “No we won’t, it’s warm,” she said, shaking her head slightly at him. Then, her smile widened and she grabbed Jay’s hand, using it to pull herself up off of the picnic blanket. Instead of helping him gather their things, their date crashed by the weather, she dragged him head-first into the middle of the clearing. 

“Nya!” Jay squealed, a giggle escaping his lips as the warm rain soaked through his clothes, adhering them to his skin. Nya turned to him, her bangs plastered to her forehead and her grin wild as she squeezed his hand. She turned so they were facing each other in the middle of the clearing, using her empty hand to reach out for him. 

“May I have this dance?” 

“It’s pouring, and there’s no music!” 

“ Jay ! Come on!” She opened and closed her hand, prompting Jay to take it and humor her request, her smile bright against the dimness of the cloudy afternoon. Jay couldn’t refuse. He grabbed her hand, looping their damp fingers together, and pulled her in. 

Jay shifted one hand to Nya’s hip and she put her empty one on his shoulder, her dimples filling with rain water as she beamed at him. Nya led for a few beats, the pouring rain serving as a melody as they twisted and swayed around the clearing, then Jay raised his eyebrows at Nya, warning her of the next move, and dipped her, his hand moving to the small of her back to cradle her above the muddy ground. She giggled as he pulled her back up, the two of them spinning around in the storm, letting go of one another only for a few moments before reaching back to the sound of the rain. Jay grinned as he swayed with the girl he loved. There was nothing better than this. 

It was only when Jay tried to twirl Nya that things went wrong. In a flash, Nya and Jay’s legs tangled together, sweeping out from beneath them and sending them hurling toward the damp, muddy grass. Nya landed half on top of Jay with a groan, which quickly turned into a giggle, then a full-on laugh that Jay had no choice but to follow. It bubbled free from his lips, shaking his chest as Nya buried her face in it. 

She pulled back, her hands resting in the grass on either side of Jay’s head as she looked down at him. “Maybe you were right, maybe this was a bad idea,” she said, grinning as Jay shook his head. 

“No, it’s my fault for trying to pull off that move,” he said, his cheeks creasing as Nya moved to cup them, pressing a quick kiss to his rain-soaked lips. “It’s too advanced for outside-of-a-video-game dancing,” he muttered as Nya brushed the mud she had left on his cheeks away and shook her head, leaning down for another kiss. Jay wrapped his arms around Nya as he kissed her back, holding her close as the rain beat down around them.

Chapter Text

“I just have this weird gut feeling that he’s around here somewhere. I don’t know how to explain it, Kai, but I just....” Nya said, trailing off as she saw a familiar brown curl poking out of a wide-brimmed hat. The figure was turned away from her and her brother, so she couldn’t see his face, but as he shifted to remove his hat and order a drink, she caught a glimpse of his face. Jay. Or at least, the face of her shattered Yin resting under the wild curls that she had always loved. Except the hair was slicked down against his skull, gathered at the back of his head in a tight bun. “What the fuck is that?”

Kai snorted from her right and Nya elbowed him in the ribs before beelining across the bar to the imposter with Jay’s face, getting a better look at him as she approached. He looked like hell, not just because of the drastic change in hair style but also the patches of scruff on his chin and his exposed cheekbones. She only found comfort in the freckles on his face, which crowded his cheeks. He must’ve been in the sun, it was what always happened when he came back to the monastery after visiting his childhood home. What had happened to him since the tournament?

Nya didn’t know how long she had been standing there studying his face, but he eventually turned, his hand curling around his drink and his eyebrows low. “Oh, for FSM’s sake. What do you want?” 

“Jay?”

“ Ugh , don’t pretend you know me,” he said, taking a swig of his drink and turning to her. “All that ‘blah blah blah you’re the love of my life’ bullshit won’t work on me, lady. I’d remember if I had a smokin’ hot ninja wife, okay?”

Nya tilted her head at Jay with a tiny grin playing on her lips as his eyes widened and his face flushed, registering the words that had quickly left his lips. He moved to get up, but Nya stopped him with a gentle hand placed on his shoulder. As soon as she knew he wasn’t going to bolt, she pulled it away, gesturing to the bar. 

“Can I buy you a drink?”

“I already have a drink.”

Nya sighed, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “Right. Can I buy you your next drink?”

Jay pulled the eyeroll that Nya had avoided. “Fine. Whatever.” He sipped his drink, staring ahead. Nya turned to Kai, who was still standing where Nya had left him. She raised her eyebrows at him, he scrunched his at her. 

What’s your endgame here?

I don’t know, but it’s worth a shot, right? Nya shrugged, looking back at Jay, who was glancing at the exchange with a wary expression. 

I don’t know, Nya…

Just… let me try this, okay? It’s the first time since the merge that he hasn’t tried to kill me as soon as I opened my mouth. 

That’s not saying much, you’ve only seen each other once. Kai’s eyebrow inched toward his hairline, his lips twitching downward at the memory he hadn’t been present for.

Kai! Can you just…. alright? Nya glanced at Jay - still watching out of the corner of his eye as he sipped his drink - then turned back to her big brother, who huffed out a sigh. 

Fine. I’ll be right over there , he glanced across the bar to an open table by the door. If you need anything. Don’t think I won’t kill this ponytailed freak just because you’re in love with him .

Thanks, Kai. 

As Kai walked away, turning back a few times to glance over his shoulder at his sister and her amnesiac Yin, Nya turned to look at Jay. She knew that he had been watching her and Kai’s prolonged silent exchange, but he turned his gaze quickly to the bottles behind the bar as soon as she turned her attention back to him. As if he had never been watching her. The familiarity of it brought a small smile to Nya’s lips.

“Is it alright if I sit?”

Jay shrugged, resting his glass against his lower lip. “It’s a free realm,” he muttered, taking a sip as Nya pulled the stool out from beside him, scooching herself onto it. The bartender approached, asking her what he could get for her, and she ordered a simple soda, which he slid across the polished wood to her. She didn’t touch it, instead watched Jay’s jaw clench and unclench between sips. After a few quiet moments, he turned to glare at her. “ What? ”

“I like your hair,” she whispered, her eyes roaming across the slicked-back curls, the way they were shoved together at the base of his head, wrapped in an azure ribbon. It matched her suit, making her heart squeeze. Even if he didn’t consciously choose it, even if he didn’t remember the significance of the ribbon, he was still wearing her favorite color. He was subconsciously carrying a piece of her with him as he trudged around the merged realms. 

Jay squinted at her suspiciously. “Thanks… I guess.”

“How’d it grow so fast?” Nya asked, tilting her head at him as she tried to gauge how long Jay’s auburn curls had grown in the time since she had last seen him. It hadn’t been long enough to justify the size of the bun, but that didn’t mean Nya didn’t enjoy the way it looked.

Jay shrugged, the stiffness of his shoulders loosening slightly. “I dunno… it just… did.” He took a sip of his drink and Nya did the same, never taking her eyes off of him as the cool drink trickled down her throat. Then, Jay surprised her by offering more than a stilted, dry response to her questioning. “It kinda sucks, actually. It’s hard to keep up with.”

“Why don’t you cut it off? If it bothers you that much?”

Jay turned to her slightly, a tiny smirk creeping onto his lips, his electric blue eyes glinting in the dim light of the bar. “Because it looks cool as fuck. That’s why you’re here, right?”

Nya let a small chuckle bubble free from her lips. “Sort of.”

“So, I guess it’s worth it,” Jay said, turning away once again. Nya’s heart raced, her stomach flipflopping as the ice at the bottom of Jay’s glass tinkled around with his final sip. When the bartender came back to refill his drink, Nya put down the cash to cover the cost. Just like she said she would.  

“Why are you here, Jay?” 

“Cheap booze,” Jay said quietly.

Nya studied him, waiting for more. When she didn’t get it, she pushed. “No, I mean… of all the places in the merged realms, you stopped in Ninjago City? Right across the street from…” she glanced through the door, across the busy street, where the arcade that they used to frequent sat, the neon sign flickering through the darkness. It felt like a lifetime ago that they had been in there together. 

Jay, having followed Nya’s gaze through the door, shrugged when she turned back to face him, taking a small sip of her drink, looking at him over the brim of her glass. “Across the street from what?”

“Across the street from the arcade,” Nya said, choosing her words carefully. She knew that if she brought up the past between them, Jay would shut down. He would tell her that she was a liar when she tried to tell him that she loved him more than she had ever loved anyone. Then, she remembered her and Kai’s mission to find him, a single step along the way that would help her now. “They’ve got a Galamorph X-Post in there. I’ve heard that you’re quite the speedrunner,” she said casually, watching as Jay’s eyebrows shot up his forehead and he turned to Nya.

“I’m not just ‘quite the speedrunner’, I’m the best speedrunner, lady,” he said, his lips quirking upward as Nya grinned at him, taking a sip of her drink. “I hold the all-time high score.”

Nya raised her eyebrow, her plan fully-fledged in her mind. All she had to do was play her cards right. “I doubt it. My brother Kai spent an entire afternoon beating that record.”

Nya nodded toward Kai in the corner, who was watching them closely, his arms crossed over his chest, his lips pulled in a straight line. Jay followed Nya’s eyeline and Kai looked like he was going to stand up, but Nya shook her head and turned back to the bar. 

“That was that guy? ” Jay asked, pushing himself away from the bar with murder in his eyes. It wasn’t shocking, given his shattered goodness and forgetfulness of his past with the Master of Fire. Nya shook her head, reaching out to put her hand on Jay’s forearm, pushing him back. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. I crushed that record in minutes. Lightwork.”

Nya narrowed her eyes as she looked at him. After a moment, Jay looked back, tilting his head in a silent question. “Hmmm. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Jay sputtered, his eyes widening as he opened his mouth to argue, then closed it, then opened it again, shaking his head. “ Oh , I’ll prove it to you,” he said, standing up quickly and slapping a handful of large coins down on the bar to pay for his first drink, then picking at Nya’s sleeve to get her to follow. “You said there was a GXP across the street?”

“Yeah… but I don’t know… Jay,” Nya said, acting as though she didn’t want to get up and follow her as she slowly put down her own cash, leaving her mostly untouched drink on the polished wood of the bar. Jay poked her arm, wordlessly begging her to follow him. She sighed, stamping down how eager she was to join him, and pushed herself off the seat, following Jay as he moved swiftly to the door. 

Before they stepped out into the street, Nya threw a glance to Kai, whose mouth was wide open as he watched Jay reach to grab her hand and tug her through the door. Nya flashed Kai a triumphant ‘I-told-you-so’ smile, before allowing Jay to tug her across the street. She couldn’t keep it off her face as they walked into the musty arcade that they used to frequent together, feeling nostalgic familiarity as Jay dragged her to the back of the neon-lit room to show off his video game skills. 

It wasn’t the same as it had been before, but it was an opening. And Nya was more than alright with that. 

Chapter Text

“This is nice,” Nya murmured, beaming in the late afternoon sunlight as she tried to replicate the scene in front of her on her canvas. She glanced at Jay’s, trying not to get discouraged by his artistic abilities, which were head and shoulders above hers. “I feel like it’s been so long since we did something like this, just the two of us.”

“Exactly,” Jay said, glancing at Nya with a smile as he focused on his painting of the grassy clearing between where they were situated on their picnic blanket and the monastery. “And I appreciate that you’re pretending not to be annoyed about me totally winning our paint-off.”

Nya rolled her eyes and nudged Jay’s shoulder, causing a yellow streak to run across his canvas. “I thought you said it wasn’t a competition,” she said, watching as Jay skillfully covered the mistake. How did he do that? 

“It’s not. I’m just saying, if it was… I’d be winning.”

“I’m starting to think your date idea was inspired by ulterior motives,” Nya said. Jay put his brush in the glass of water beside them, picking up a cookie from the amateur charcuterie board he had brought and taking a bite with a grin, then pressing a kiss on Nya’s cheek as he chewed. The crumbs tickled her skin and she couldn’t help but giggle. 

“Maybe.”

“Hey, guys!” 

Jay and Nya whipped their attention toward the monastery, where Kai had climbed out of his mech and was running toward them. Nya groaned as Kai approached the picnic blanket, panting as he plopped down on it.

“Whatcha doing?” he asked, reaching forward and grabbing a strawberry from the tray beside Nya’s botched canvas, completely oblivious to the date he was crashing. 

“Hey, Kai. We’re actually just-” Nya was cut off by her idiot brother.

“Woah! Nice painting, dude,” he said, pointing at Jay’s canvas. Jay furrowed his brow at the Master of Fire, clearly irritated by the interruption as Kai continued, shifting his focus to Nya’s painting. “And Nya, yours is… decent. I guess.”

Nya glared at Kai, who grabbed another berry and popped it in his mouth, looking around the clearing. It was a lovely day, not too warm but not freezing, with all of the bugs that usually swarmed around in mid-July having retired to the trees. But, Nya couldn’t focus on that with the irritation at Kai’s interruption bubbling up inside of her, her palms coating with her element as she resisted the urge to douse him in water. Thankfully, Jay spoke before she could do anything. 

“Hey, Kai. I dare you to put this honey in your hair,” Jay said, his electric eyes glinting with mischief as Kai snatched the jar of honey from his fingertips, immediately moving to slather his gelled hair with the sticky-sweet contents. 

“Kai… you shouldn’t…” Nya said, shooting Jay an exasperated look, wordlessly asking him why he would do that. Jay grinned back at her, silently telling her to trust him . She always did.

Kai had put the jar down, nodding along with Nya’s words until Jay pushed. “Kai… I double. Dog. Dare you.” 

Nya groaned as Kai’s eyes widened. She knew that there was no way her brother would back down from a challenge like that. So, Nya watched in horror while Jay watched in glee as Kai smothered his hair with honey, grinning as it dripped down into his eyes. 

“ Ha! Now what, Jay?” he asked smugly, as if his sticky hair was an indication that he had somehow pulled a fast one on the Master of Lightning. In reality, it was the complete opposite. 

“Now we wait,” Jay said simply, looking up into the sky as a swarm of flies descended from above, with the Master of Fire as their primary target. Jay wrapped his arm around Nya, covering her ears and instructing her to close her mouth as the bugs began attacking Kai, forcing him to shoot up off the ground and bolt for the monastery. Nya shook with giggles as she watched him go.

“I told him not to put honey in his hair.”

Once all of the insects had cleared out from the picnic, choosing to follow the sweet scent wafting off of Kai’s hair, Jay relaxed his hold on Nya, keeping his arm wrapped around her in an embrace from the side. She leaned into his shoulder. “Well, someone had to get him out of here.” He brushed a kiss to her hair as Nya reached down, swiping some of the honey off of the edge of the jar and bringing it to her tongue, relishing in the sweetness that had finally gotten Kai to take the hint. “I love the guy and all, but he cannot read the room. And yes, I know that’s a lot coming from me,” Jay said, cutting off the words that he could sense were playing on Nya’s lips. She closed her mouth quickly, her lips turning back up into a smile. 

“You saved the date,” she said quietly, adjusting so that she was resting against Jay’s lap, his other arm coming around to hold her as they watched the sun dip below the horizon behind the monastery, their canvases abandoned. There was no way that they could replicate the perfection of the scene, so they settled for soaking it in together.

Chapter Text

When Nya landed in Djinjago with a poof , her heart nearly stopped. Then, it threatened to beat out of her chest as she laid eyes on someone she thought was long, long gone. Nadakhan.

“Ah, Delara! We meet again,” he said, his untrustworthy grin peering down from where he floated above her. 

Nya raised her weapon with one hand, a ball of water with the other, ready to strike. “For the last time, my name is Nya ,” she said, her hands shaking as Nadakhan chuckled down at her. “And you’re supposed to be locked away in a teapot.”

“A lot has changed, Nya .” She didn’t like the way he said her name, like it had lost all of its meaning, all sense of identity that came along with it. It felt wrong leaving the Djinn’s lips. Nya swallowed, trying to keep her eyes - the only part of her face peeking through her mask - from showing how afraid she was. “For your realms, for mine. For him .”

Nya’s heart skittered back to a stop. Jay . Of course he knew that using Jay would be the way to get to her, it always had been. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she muttered, knowing that her lie was obvious. 

“He’s not the same as when I last saw him, is he?” Nadakhan floated around her, taunting her with his wicked smile. Nya clutched her trident, her eyes following him warily. “Angry… avoidant… amnesiac,” he smirked. “And he hates you… what a tragedy.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nya spat, tears rising in her eyes as Nadakhan’s words hit her, pushing against the fresh wounds on her heart. She attempted a wry chuckle, but it came out wrong. Strangled. “You’ve been locked away so long, I think you’ve gone insane.”

Nadakhan clicked his tongue at her, shaking his head as his wicked grin widened. Nya’s stomach turned, her grip tightened on her weapon, even though she knew better than to strike. He would just poof out of the way and continue taunting her. “I know more than you think, little miss water ninja,” he said. “You seem to have forgotten the nearly all-consuming power of a Djinn prince.”

“A prince who was never good enough to become king,” Nya shot back, hoping that her words were as barbed as his were. That they would leave a mark on Nadakhan’s twisted, dark shell of a heart. 

“You can still wish it all away, Nya…”

The ball of water fell from Nya’s fist to the ground with a splash at her feet. The words that had plagued her and Jay in a timeline long gone… that had passed into their nightmares, repeated over and over again. “No…”

“Yes, Nya. Wish his memories back, wish him back into your arms… wish all of this,” he gestured around Djinjago, but Nya knew that his words referred to the larger expanse of the merged realms around them. “Away. It would all be so simple, Nya. Go back to your life. All you have to do is wish for it.”

A memory flickered behind Nya’s eyelids as she squeezed them shut, trying to block out Nadakhan’s proposition. 

Jay, smiling at her across the courtyard as their teammates trudged through the dance. He turned to her, reaching out his hand. “May I have this dance?” There was no realm in which Nya would say no. She cherished every moment she had with him, even then, especially when they danced together. Jay took her hand and led her around the courtyard, spinning her carefully and then letting her fall into a dip, his grinning face centimeters away from her nose. Nya beamed back up at him. “I will love you forever, Nya,” he swore. 

Later that afternoon, he had climbed into his mech as the sky split into a colorful storm, yelling the promise to her again over the howling wind before taking off, disappearing forever.

Nya squeezed her eyes shut.

"Wish it all away, Nya. Wish him home. Wish him back to you,” Nadakhan’s words cut through the darkness behind her eyelids. So poisonous, so monstrous. So tempting .

Nya missed Jay so much she ached. Every morning, she woke up craving him beside her. For the first few moments of morning consciousness, she forgot that he wasn’t there, feeling around the sheets for his warmth, only to come up empty handed, her heart breaking all over again when her memories came crashing back. When she remembered the blankness of his mind, the shattering of his goodness, the words that outweighed his promise from before. I will always hate you . 

Hate you…

Hate… you….

Wish it all away. 

But Nya couldn’t… she wouldn’t. Long ago, she had learned from Jay that wishes only created more problems, they didn’t solve preexisting ones. Especially when it came to Nadakhan, especially with his tendency to twist their words. That was what had gotten them into all the trouble of the past, wasn’t it? 

“No,” Nya said quietly, opening her eyes and fixing Nadakhan with a glare. “I would never.”

“So foolish…” Nadakhan said, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked down at her. But he was the fool, since he didn’t seem to see Arrakore appearing behind him, floating within earshot of the verbal battle below. 

Another memory from Jay and Nya’s first battle against Nadakhan flashed in her mind. Another wish. One that he had no choice but to obey. 

With another ball of water formed in her hand, her trident raised and ready to strike, Nya called out to the other ‘last Djinn’ in the realm. “Arrakore! I wish Nadakhan wasn’t a Djinn!” she shouted, ensuring that there was no way he could miss her message. 

“Your wish is yours to keep,” Arrakore said, pressing all four of his hands together as a pink cloud enveloped the scene. Nadakhan’s lip curled as he was frozen in place, his second set of arms detracting into his body, legs growing from where he had previously been floating. He fell to the ground with a satisfying crunch and Nya pounced, sinking her trident into his weakened, mortal body. 

It served him right for trying to use Jay against her. 

When she got him back, it wouldn’t be because of a twisted wish.  

Chapter Text

Jay’s voice echoed through the icy chasm. “Hey, guys, guess what! I get an awesome eye-patch!” he bragged over his shoulder, studying his reflection in the cave wall. The version of himself mirrored back at him was middle-aged, his face lined with wrinkles from a lifetime of the same goofy grins that Jay was wearing as he observed his reflection. He had a curly mustache sitting above his lips, with the facial hair reaching down to his chin. A deep blue eyepatch was stretched across his face, his hair was peppered with gray. “And… there’s something else…” he said as a figure approached him in the reflection. 

Nya . 

The version of her in the cave wall was older, just like his was, with her hair pulled into a longer ponytail rather than her current bob, also streaked with gray. She approached his side, smiling as Jay’s reflection wrapped an arm around her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. 

“What, Jay? What is so great that you see that I clearly cannot?” Cole asked, irritation at his ghostly state coating his words from the other wall, where he, Kai and Zane had been pondering their own future reflections. 

“I end up with Nya,” Jay whispered as the reflected Nya rested her head on his reflection’s chest. Then, her attention was pulled away as two more figures joined them in the reflection. Neither of the girls appeared to be much older than his current self as the younger one chased the older one around Jay and Nya’s reflections, her wild auburn hair cascading behind her like a waterfall. Jay’s eyes widened as the taller of the two young girls, with darker brown hair sticking up in every direction, ran her fingers along her sweater to pull static electricity from the wool, zapping her sister with elemental lightning. His elemental lightning. His jaw dropped when the younger one shrieked silently and reacted with a burst of water that drenched her big sister. The reflection of Nya turned, her brows low as she scolded the two of them, pointing toward current Jay through the icy cave wall, saying something that he couldn’t hear or understand. Whatever it was, it pulled the attention of the girls toward him, and he was able to get a better look at them. 

The one with the lightning had deep brown eyes, her lips pulled in a confused line that Jay had seen before on Nya’s face, her hand finding its way to her hip as she cocked her head, studying the younger version of her father. The one who could harness water was wearing a curious expression, less skeptical than her sister as she pushed her hair out of her eyes. They were blue with bursts of green and gray around her pupils, making them appear like the sea that she could channel. Just like her mother. 

Both of their faces were covered in the same constellations of freckles that sparkled across his nose and cheeks. They turned to the future version of their father, then back to the younger version of him, examining him through time. 

“Jay?” Kai’s voice echoed through the cave.

Jay was engrossed by the reflection, soaking up every part of the future laid out before him. Butterflies erupted in his stomach as future Nya leaned in to press a kiss to his reflection’s cheek, but then his attention was pulled away by his teammates. 

“Nothing! Just an eye-patch. Weird, right?” 

“Wait, I think I see something!” Cole said, excitement clear in his ghostly voice as he leaned closer, letting out a cry as he made out what was waiting in the ice for him. “No! It’s Morro!”

Chapter Text

“This is stupid,” Jay muttered at his reflection, adjusting the platinum-blonde wig so that none of his curls would slip out from beneath it. It was all so stupid, but that hadn’t stopped Jay from committing to the disguise. He had broken into Nya’s makeup bag and brushed blush to his cheeks, spreading some of her classic red lipstick across his chapped lips. Nya hadn’t noticed, of course, as she had been out of the Bounty again. It seemed as though she was gone more than she was home these days, and none of the team knew where she kept disappearing to. So, with his face painted on and his legs shaved (to fully commit to going undercover), Jay had wiggled into a dusty pink dress he had picked up from a second-hand store in the city. It was stupid, but he looked good. 

There was a chance this would work.

“Going out to find the Samurai! See you guys later!” Jay shouted as he walked out of the side door of the Bounty and climbed into his jet, his eyes anxiously scanning his surroundings to make sure none of his teammates saw his disguise. He knew that there was no way that they would let him leave dressed the way he was, that they would tease him ‘till next Tuesday for getting so into character for the mission. Lucky for him, the deck was empty. From inside, Jay could hear Cole yell something back about not caring where Jay was off to, that he was too busy with a marathon round of video games. 

He zoomed above the desert, looking around for any sign of the mysterious Samurai but coming up empty over and over again. Darn. Jay had been hoping that his opponent would just fall into his lap so he could kick his butt and force him to reveal his identity, making Jay the destined Green Ninja. Even though he was sure that he looked much better in blue. He would have to settle for plan B, the reasoning behind his outfit.

With the Storm Glider parked carefully out of sight behind a cluster of boulders, Jay flung himself onto the train tracks. The desert was empty, but he could feel the tracks buzzing beneath him, signaling that a train would soon come to claim him. If the Samurai showed up in time to save him, he would fall right into Jay’s trap. 

“Help! Samurai, ahhhh! ” Jay squealed, pitching his voice up more and more as he shouted into the hot air, sweat brewing along his hairline below the wig. “C’mon… Samurai. Come out come out wherever you are,” he muttered, throwing another cry into the air.

As if he heard Jay’s frustrated mumbling, Samurai X appeared. One massive leg of his mech on either side of the tracks, he reached down to grab pieces of the machinery, which he rearranged so that the rapidly approaching train would miss Jay lying on the tracks. As the train flew by, kicking up sand and tousling Jay’s wig in the process, Samurai X looked down at him, tilting his head quickly, studying him before flying away. 

“Ugh! Stupid Samurai !” the girl on the tracks shouted, her voice echoing through the hot desert air. Only, it wasn’t a girl’s voice. Although it was nasally and high-pitched, there was an edge to it that was immediately recognizable. 

Nya knew that voice. 

As she flew away, the cool air of her mech keeping the dryness of the desert from sticking to her skin, Nya looked back and saw a tiny figure dressed in pink stand up from the tracks - proving her diversion of the tracks completely unnecessary - and stomping around as they pulled off their wig and threw it on the ground. As they continued moving erratically with their shouts, Nya got a glimpse of auburn hair. It was enough to confirm her suspicions. 

Jay was the girl on the tracks. 

He had tried to lure her out, to figure out the mystery of Samurai X. Kai had filled Nya in on the team’s ongoing competition to see who could be the first to uncover her secret (of course, he didn’t know that it was hers to keep), with each member’s schemes becoming wilder and wilder as the Samurai continued slipping out of their reach. Thus, Jay’s plan to sprawl out on the train tracks in the middle of the desert in a frilly pink dress that fit him shockingly well.

Nya wished she could tease him for it, and a part of her wished she could tell him how good he looked in the getup, but that would ruin the whole point of her disguise. She would have to keep her lips sealed.

That was, until her secret was revealed. Shortly afterward, Jay pulled her aside, his eyes wide with recognition.

“So… you’ve been the Samurai, like… the whole time?” he asked, glancing around the hallway of the Bounty, looking around for any teammates that could be eavesdropping. Lucky for him, Zane had taken to impressive breakdancing for the rest of the team. They would be enthralled for hours. 

Nya chuckled, putting her hand on her hip. “No, Jay. I stole the Samurai’s suit and just happened to see you strapped to train tracks in the middle of the desert,” she said sarcastically, grinning as Jay’s face flushed beneath his freckles. “Nice legs, by the way.” 

Jay’s blush deepened, but his lips twitched up in a grin. “What, these old things?” he said with faux causality, jutting out one leg dramatically and pulling another giggle out of Nya. “They’re just the result of hardcore ninja-ing. No match for, y’know, a twenty-foot-tall steel mech. Nice work, by the way.” 

It was Nya’s turn to blush as she leaned against the wall, chewing on her smile. “Thanks. It’s still a work in progress, but-” 

“But it’s magnificent,” Jay said, his shoulder falling into the wall, his body slanted diagonally as he studied Nya. His bright blue, electrified eyes always had the power to make her feel like she was all he could see in the world. His gaze made her feel safe, like he could embrace her without even having to touch her. She nearly melted under it every time Jay looked at her. Nya swallowed as Jay cleared his throat, cracking into the electricity clouding the air between them, thick and tense and intriguing, as always. “So, um… will you keep my secret?”

“About your great legs?” Nya asked, her eyebrow creeping under her bangs as Jay rolled his eyes with a smirk. “I think everyone already knows that. You wear shorts around the Bounty too much for those to be a secret.”

”Ha ha.”

Nya beamed as Jay pushed away from the wall, extending his hand to her, which she took gladly. As Nya followed Jay back through the ship to join the rest of the team, they agreed to keep Jay’s disguise between them. 

It was nice to have their own little secret.

Chapter Text

For her entire childhood, Nya had been dressed in red. Most of her clothes were hand-me-downs from Kai, who had long decided that he would represent himself through his favorite color, but Nya felt that the slightly darker shade of her clothes as she got older better suited her. Then, as she connected with the element that flowed through her, she started incorporating more and more blue into her clothes. It was her favorite color, after all, and a tiny part of her felt giddy every time she got the chance to match with Jay. Every time he pointed out their shared favorite color as it worked its way into her wardrobe, Nya’s cheeks burned with a steady stream of scarlet blush. Even after they had been dating steadily for years, spending more time together than apart, Nya still found herself hopelessly crushing on her boyfriend. She found herself giddy and foolish when she thought about him knowing about it. 

The shift from red to blue didn’t mean that Nya completely abandoned wearing maroon, Jay was sure of that. Once in a blue moon, he would accidentally leave marks along her neck and collarbones, bites of his love for her that peppered her skin. The marks led to consistent teasing from their teammates and lectures about safety from Kai, but once Nya’s embarrassment subsided, she didn’t care what everyone else thought. All she cared about was what Jay thought of her, and she received proof time and time again that he adored her. Plus, she often left marks of her own, finding home and safety in the brush of Jay’s lips to hers. 

Nya was exhilarated at the idea of it lasting forever, especially after Jay promised it to her. Neither of them saw the storm coming. Neither of them expected to be ripped from each other’s arms and out of each other’s lives. 

When Nya woke up in the Land of Madness, she took a moment to get her bearings before reaching into her gi, tugging out her phone. Her fingers ran quickly across the cracked screen, the device miraculously having survived the storm, and dialed Jay’s number, holding the phone up to her face as she waited - and prayed - for Jay to answer. The shards of glass pressed into her cheek, the pain dulled as the phone rang… and rang… and rang… and Jay never answered. 

When Nya returned to the monastery - her home - for the first time since the merge, she foolishly searched every room for Jay. Even though Lloyd had told her that her Yin was still missing, even though Cole had told her that he hadn’t seen his best friend since he disappeared into the storm, Nya stepped into his bedroom as soon as she got back. It was exactly how Jay had left it the morning of the merge. Inventing plans strewn across the desk, a coffee cup whose contents had long since evaporated leaving a ring on the corner of a page. Clothes scattered across the floor, nunchucks on the bedside table. 

Nya took a deep breath, inhaling the stale air of the room. It had been too long since Jay had been in it, she couldn’t smell his presence in the air alone. 

She sighed, stepping into the room as a lump rose in her throat, scanning the clothes that littered the floor and finally landing on a faded maroon t-shirt. A small smile crept onto Nya’s lips as she scooped it off the floor, opening it up in front of her before she pulled it on. The Four Weapons logo stared back at her, almost completely faded from years of use. A year into their relationship, Nya had complained about her sleep shirt going missing, only to find out that Jay had swiped it from her and had been wearing it every night to have a piece of her with him. She stole it back, then he grabbed it again. For two more years, until Nya finally gave in. They spent most nights in each other’s rooms, anyway, so Nya often had a chance to grab the stretched out t-shirt and pull it on before Jay had the chance to.

She ached as she tugged it over her head in the darkened, abandoned room. Nya squeezed her eyes shut and, for a moment, she felt as though the tattered fabric was Jay wrapped around her. When that feeling dissipated, she crawled into Jay’s bed, cocooning herself in his covers, clutching Mr Cuddlywomp - who had also been left behind in the storm - to her chest. She begged sleep to overtake her, to sweep her off to a land where Jay was by her side, but it never did. So, she settled for lying in his bed, his memory hanging in the static air around her. Nya kept her eyes screwed shut until scarlet was all she could see, squeezing her hands into fists so tightly that her nails dug into her skin, forcing rusty, maroon blood to burst forth from the half-mooned cuts in her palms. The pain in her hands distracted Nya from the pain of missing Jay. 

Chapter Text

Jay sat across from Nya in a dimly lit, romantic restaurant that he knew he could barely afford. He had been saving for weeks to make everything perfect, including the cost of bribing the wait staff to bring out two flutes of champagne, one with a special offering slipped in. 

Nya told the waiter that they hadn’t ordered any champagne when it was brought out, but Jay insisted that it was alright, watching Nya closely over the brim of his glass as she brought the flute to her lips, her eyes wandering to the bottom of the drink, her attention catching on the half of the pendant that sat at the bottom.

“No, no! You can’t do it like that!” 

Jay groaned. “Why not? Isn’t it a cliche for a reason?”

Kai rolled his eyes at Jay, rolling over on the couch to look at him upside down. “Yeah, when people propose with rings , you moron. Have you seen this thing?” he asked, holding the pendant out to Jay. “This thing is massive! How do you expect Nya not to see that as soon as the champagne’s at the table? And do you really think she’s stupid enough to drink something she didn’t order?” 

“ Ugh , fine,” Jay said, leaning over the table to cross champagne glass off of his list of potential proposals. 

“What’s your next idea?”

Jay squeezed Nya’s hand as they waited in line for the rollercoaster. The very same coaster on which they had shared their first kiss, during their disastrous first date. Nya smiled back at him, a giddy look in her eyes as they climbed into the front car of the coaster, pulling down their lap belts as the car propelled forward. Once they got to the top of the first drop, where Jay knew the coaster stopped for the longest time to allow the riders to get the best aerial look at MegaMonster Amusement Park, Jay reached into his pocket and pulled out the pendant. The words ‘will you be my Yang?’ tickled his tongue as he tapped Nya on the shoulder, pulling her attention away from the landscape and toward him.

“That’s a terrible idea!” Kai said, cutting through Jay’s plans. Jay glared at him. “First of all, you really wanna bring up your atrocious first date? Make Nya remember almost dying tied to a roller coaster while you were a… snake?” Jay furrowed his eyebrow. He hadn’t thought of that. “Plus, your hands are definitely gonna be shaking, Light Socket. If you drop the pendant on the coaster, you’re gonna look like a massive loser when you have to ask the attendants to go grab it. Then, boom! Moment ruined.”

Jay sighed. “I hate it when you make a point.” 

“That must suck for you, since it happens so often,” Kai said with a smirk. 

Jay chose not to snap back at the Master of Fire, he was helping him, after all, and instead focused on crossing the idea out with three bold lines. Then, he moved on to the next proposal concept on the list. 

The team was walking through Ninjago City, relishing in their day off. They were just about to grab lunch from a food truck in the park when music began blaring through the clearing. Nya looked around, her eyes wide as she looked around for the source of the sound, her gaze catching on a group of kids as they started dancing. Then, a cluster of old folks joined, their choreography impeccable. Soon, Cole stepped forward, joining the dancing crowd and waving for his teammates to do the same. Nya’s jaw dropped as her fellow ninja jumped into the mob, completing every move with perfection and precision as she watched on. When the music swelled, Jay stepped forward, panting as he dropped down on one knee. 

“No! You are not asking my sister to be your Yang with a flash mob ,” Kai said, putting his foot down on the floor as he adjusted on the couch. “You can’t even dance!” 

Jay opened his mouth to argue, to tell him that actually, he and Nya had been taking dance classes together for months , but the embarrassment that had led him to keep the classes a secret from the rest of the team in the first place came bubbling back. He simply nodded, immediately moving on to the next idea in his notebook.

A plate of fortune cookies was passed around the table after dinner. When it got to Nya, she picked up the one with a slip of red paper peeking out of it, clearly intrigued by the message waiting for her inside of her desert. She cracked it open, pulling out the fortune. As her eyes scanned the message, the question ‘will you be my Yang?’, Jay reached into his pocket and pulled out the pendant and beamed, ready for when Nya looked up at him. 

“Wrong again!” Jay let out an exasperated sigh as Kai sat back on the couch, shaking his head with his arms crossed over his chest. “There’s no way she’s picking up the right cookie. With your luck, it would probably be Cole who gets it… at least he’d eat the whole thing in one bite.” 

“Fine.” 

Jay and Nya were walking through the park when a mech flew overhead, leaving words of smoke in its wake. Will you be my wang?

“Wang?” 

“Yeah, because that’s another stupid idea and if I’m piloting the mech, I’m one-hundred-percent going to screw with you,” Kai said, shaking his head at Jay. 

“Why are you even helping me, then? If you hate all of my ideas?”

Kai sighed, propping himself forward on his knees to study Jay. “Because this is Nya we’re talking about, so it has to be perfect.” He stood up, taking the pendant from Jay and clearing his throat. “You’ve gotta be casual about it. Say something like: ‘we make a pretty good pair, so what do you say we take things to the next level?’” As Kai spoke, he walked a circle around Jay, his voice low and seemingly seductive. Jay wrinkled his nose as Kai spun around, dropping to his knee in front of Jay. “‘Will you be my Yang?’” 

It was Jay’s turn to shoot down Kai’s idea.

“Absolutely not.”

“Why not?” Kai asked, standing up quickly with a frown. “That’s the perfect way to ask Nya-”

“Ask me what?” 

Jay and Kai widened their eyes at each other, then spun around to look at Nya by the door. Jay’s heart swelled as he took her in: a small smile playing on her lips, her hair down, her cheeks pink in the warm orange light of the fading sun behind her. She looked like a painting, like a scene out of a movie, like a perfectly crafted statue in sweats and a faded t-shirt. Jay had to keep his jaw from dropping. 

“Uhh…. asking you where you got that outfit! I want one,” he said quickly, glancing at Kai to make sure he had hidden the pendant before stepping forward, reaching for his girlfriend’s hands and pressing a quick kiss to her cheek. She chuckled, leaning in, then shot him a confused look. 

“Well, Jay… this is your shirt,” she said, picking at the oversized top covered in lightning bolts. “And I’m pretty sure you have more pairs of sweats than I do.”

“You make a good point, but I don’t wear it nearly as well as you do,” Jay said, praying to the First Spinjitzu Master that he had recovered the moment and successfully concealed his and Kai’s true conversation. Behind him, the Master of Fire groaned and walked out of the room, complaining about Jay and Nya needing to get a room. Jay hoped that - if he ever found the perfect way to ask - they would be able to. 

A week later, the moment arrived. It was far from perfect, miles and miles away from what he had planned, even, but that was what made it so right. It was uniquely Jay and Nya .

The battle raged around them, the Overlord pounding on their door. Bang bang bang . 

“That thing’s not gonna last forever!”

Forever… forever… forever… 

Jay’s eyes widened behind his mask and he tightened his grip on his nunchucks, then turned to Nya, who was similarly clutching her trident, prepared for the takedown unfolding around them. Her brown eyes sparkled, the tiny mole along her cheekbone catching his attention, like it always did. Jay didn’t need to see her entire face to see how beautiful she was, to know how much he loved her. He knew, deep in his bones, that he wanted a forever with her. He had known it since the moment he met her. “Nya! I have to ask you something important!” 

Nya’s brow crinkled through her mask. “What? Now?” she asked, gesturing around at the seriousness of their situation. That was exactly why he was acting with such urgency. 

“Yes, now!” he said, tugging off his mask and raising his eyebrows, urging Nya to do the same. She wore a tiny, confused smile as he dropped down in front of her, taking a deep breath to steady himself. His words came out quickly, without him having to think them through. He spoke from his heart, so he had no reason to hesitate. “Nya, you make me so happy everyday, when we’re not together I miss you so much that it feels like part of me is missing!” he said, the words tumbling out as he reached a shaking hand into the pocket of his gi, where he had been holding the pendant, searching for the right moment. There was no time like the present. Jay pulled the pieces apart, extending half to Nya. “Will you be my Yang?”

Nya’s mouth fell open as she gasped, reaching forward and taking the half of the pendant from Jay, running her fingertips along it. Behind her, Kai and Cole leaned toward Jay, but all he could focus on was Nya as she looked down at him, her breathing suddenly uneven. 

“ Now you’re asking?” 

“We seriously need to work on your sense of timing, Jay!” 

Jay stood up, turning to his friends. “There may not be another time,” he said, his attention flickering to the swirling evil waiting for them outside of the monastery. Then, he turned back to Nya, whose chin was quivering, her smile glittering. He raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes, wordlessly asking her again.

“Yes!” she exclaimed, dropping her weapon in favor of lunging forward, wrapping her arms around Jay’s shoulders, standing on her tiptoes as she pressed her entire body against him, her chin dropping onto his shoulder as his arms came up around her back, holding her close. “Of course, you big dummy!”

Jay crinkled his nose, holding back giddy tears that threatened to spill from his eyes, which were squeezed shut. Nya pulled away enough to brush a kiss to his lips, holding either side of his face as he continued to hug her, then peppered them across his cheeks, giggling as he laughed at the tickling sensation. Neither of them paid any attention to the impending doom waiting for them outside of the monastery gates. All Jay and Nya could focus on was the forever waiting for them. Together.

Chapter Text

“Kai, you’ve been coming out here for months. Why do I have to come with you now ?” Nya asked, her voice dripping through her complaint as sweat rolled down from her brow, sticking her bangs to her forehead. She climbed off of her bike as she and Kai neared the scrap yard, letting it fall into the sand beside her big brother’s as he turned to her, furrowing his eyebrows as he squinted in the sun.

“Because, Nya, Mrs Grumbmiller couldn’t watch you today. She’s getting that disgusting mole checked out, or something…” he muttered. Nya groaned. “Plus, it’ll be good for you to get an up-close look at the family business.” 

Nya had no idea why strangers were so nice to her and her brother, especially not the junkyard owners. They had no ties to Kai and Nya, no loyalty to their blacksmithing shop, but Kai had been riding his bike out to the junkyard nearly once a week for almost half a year, always coming back with a bursting bag of metal pieces to work into weapons to sell. They never asked for anything in return. Nya found it suspicious. It was half of the reasoning behind her agreement to join Kai on the errand, before she realized how grueling the journey to the Sea of Sand would prove to be.

“But it’s hot out here.”

“It doesn’t really bother me,” Kai said with a shrug, reaching forward and grabbing the crook of Nya’s elbow, dragging her toward the opening of the junkyard. “Plus, Mrs Walker’s really nice. She always sends me home with cookies.”

“You’ve never brought home cookies,” Nya said, an edge of questioning in her voice.

Kai flashed her a grin. “Yeah. I always eat them all on the ride home. Another reason why it’s good that you’re here!” Kai said as he let go of Nya, calling into the crowded junkyard. “Mr Walker? It’s Kai!” 

After a moment of silence, the hot desert air beating down on Kai and Nya, a man’s voice came tumbling through the back corner of the courtyard, followed quickly by a clatter and the supposed Mr Walker himself. “Oh, Kai! It’s so good to see you, son,” he said, raking a hand through his graying hair as he stepped through the scrap metal littering the sand on his way to Kai and Nya. He reached out a hand and shook Kai’s, then turned his attention to his sister. “And who is this?” 

“This is my sister, Nya.”

“Hi,” Nya said quietly, offering the older man a small wave.

“So good to meet you, Nya sweetie,” Mr Walker beamed at her. “Getting a taste of the family business, eh? Seeing how the sausage gets made?” 

Nya nodded, shyness overtaking her. Kai put his hand on her shoulder comfortingly, then jumped into business.

“You said that you had another bag of scrap metal for us?” 

“Ah, yes! Come around the back, son. You can help me lift it,” Mr Walker said, waving Kai into the junkyard. Before Kai followed him, he turned to Nya. 

“Will you be okay here?”

Nya nodded, putting on the front of bravery that she had gotten so used to. She and Kai had been almost entirely on their own for years, she could handle being by herself for a few minutes while they were on the job. Kai squeezed her shoulder, then jogged off after Mr Walker.

“Oh, aren't you just as cute as a button?” a woman’s voice pulled Nya’s attention toward the trailer in the middle of the junkyard, where an older woman was smiling at her as she walked forward. Nya’s face flushed and she felt herself shrinking in on herself as she approached. “I’m Edna. You must be Kai’s sister. It’s so good to meet you, dear!” Edna said, leaning down and offering Nya the first genuine smile she had received from an adult in months. Most times, grown-ups looked down at her like she was a bug in their path, tiny and in the way. “And you can’t be much younger than my son, now can you? You should meet him! I’m sure he’s around here somewhere… Jay, honey!” 

“ What mom? ” a boy’s voice called through the dry air, ricocheting around the junkyard.

“Are you building wings again, honey?” Edna asked, straightening up and facing her attention to the sky as she yelled back. 

“ Yes, mom! ”

“Well, can you take a break? I want you to come meet someone!” 

A beat. Two beats. Then, a young boy dressed head to toe in blue came around from behind the trailer, covered in grime and grease, presumably from his efforts to create wings and fly away. Mrs Walker was right, he couldn’t have been much older than Nya, who immediately found herself studying the boy as he crept up to his mother’s side. He had wild, curly hair that glowed reddish in the desert sun as it stuck up in every direction. When he turned to the guest waiting for him, his bright blue eyes crinkled closed in his smile, the gap where one of his front teeth had been peeking out from between chapped lips. His cheeks were covered in freckles, so many that it almost made him look tanned, providing proof of a young lifetime in the sun. 

Nya’s heart leapt into her throat at the sight of him. Weird .

“Hi! I’m Jay,” he said, waving enthusiastically as his mom ran inside to grab a batch of cookies for Kai and Nya, who felt her heart skip a beat, jumping up and down where it had settled behind her tongue. Her cheeks burned. It must be from the desert. It’s sweltering out here!

“N..Nya,” she replied, kicking herself at the stutter, which only made her heart do more cartwheels in her throat. She chanced a wave in return, but was sure that it came off wrong. Either too desperate and needy or not enough, forcing Nya to clasp her hands behind her back out of embarrassment. Thankfully, she was saved by her big brother. Her hero. 

“Man, Mr Walker packed this bag tight ,” Kai muttered, adjusting the burlap sack on his shoulder as he stepped back around the junkyard, his eyes flicking from Nya to the mother and son standing in front of her. “Oh, hi, Jay.” 

“Hi, Kai!” 

“I’m sorry about Ed, Kai, honey. I told him that he didn’t have to weigh you down on your journey home. You’re here almost every week,” Mrs Walker muttered apologetically as she stepped across the sand, handing a heavy paper bag to Nya and putting her hand on her shoulder. She gave her a gentle, motherly squeeze before pulling away and smoothing Jay’s wild hair. He groaned out a Ma! and ran his fingers back through it as soon as she retracted her hand, making sure to undo all of her hard work. “I’m sure we’ll see you again soon. Both of you, hopefully,” Mrs Walker beamed in Nya’s direction, filling her with a warm feeling of acceptance. 

“Are you ready to go?” Kai asked, turning to Nya with the bag of scrap metal slung over his shoulder. Nya nodded, turning to wave to the Walkers one last time before she and Kai walked back to their bikes. She looked over her shoulder once more in time to see Jay watching them go, turning quickly and covering his cheeks when he saw Nya glance back. As she and Kai climbed onto their bikes, Nya’s big brother turned to look at her, his scarred eyebrow raised. “What’s up with your face?”

“What?”

“You look like you just stuck your head in a cloud of perfume,” he said as they began pedaling across the packed sand. Nya could feel her face flushing even deeper, without having to be exposed to her allergen.

“I, um… it’s just so hot out here!” she said, picking up the speed of her pedaling to pull ahead of her brother so he couldn’t see her furious blush. “I’ll race you back to the shop!” 

Chapter Text

It was a strange feeling, that of drowning while curled on dry land. Jay could feel the fluid swirling around in his lungs, shifting every time he took a breath. It constricted around him and he coughed, trying fruitlessly to shake free the water, never having any luck. 

Nya knelt by his side, both of her hands clutching his as she watched every tentative breath, studying the pace and the deepness of his gasps for air. Her brow was furrowed, her eyes rimmed with red, despite Jay never seeing any tears fall down her cheeks. Every once and a while, his vision would blur, forcing his eyes shut as his breathing shallowed. Maybe that was when Nya let herself cry, when he couldn’t see it. 

Her hands twitched with frustration as she tried again to pull the water out of his lungs, her control over her element proving to be just as strong-willed as she was as it refused to vacate his warm body. Jay’s eyes were closed, spots of color dancing behind his eyelids, but he could hear the hushed conversation happening around him. 

“It doesn’t make sense… it’s water. I’m… I’m supposed to be able to get it out,” Nya said, sniffling. Her voice sounded faraway, like she was facing away from Jay as she spoke. “I’m supposed to be able to get it out…” she muttered, her voice quivering as it became closer, like she had turned back to him. Nya’s fingertips ran along his forehead, pushing some of his hair out of his eyes as he willed them open, the edges of his vision still foggy. He watched Nya quickly brush her cheeks, pushing a smile to her lips as her palm cupped his cheek. 

The conversation resumed when Jay’s eyes slid closed once again, coughing and wheezing through the quiet room. “It doesn’t always work like that, Nya… power can slip out of even the most skilled elemental masters’ hands.” 

Nya’s thumb ran along Jay’s cheek, caressing his freckles. Then, she stood up, squeezing his hand once more before leaving his side. Jay coughed, some of the water shaking around in his lungs but refusing to leave. 

Her voice was even further away, nearly inaudible as she whispered from the other side of the room. “Bentho… how did Nyad defeat Wojira? In the story you told me.”

“She became one with the sea,” Benthomaar explained quietly.

A pause. “But… how exactly?”

“She opened herself up to the full power of the ocean… she merged with it.” Nya was silent, but Jay could tell from the panic in Bentho’s voice that she was pondering his words. “Do not think of such things! Nyad may have defeated Wojira, but she lost herself. What she did could not be undone… she vanished.”

Jay sucked in a breath at the thought of Nya following in the footsteps of her namesake, shifting the water in his lungs, making him hack up a cough in a desperate search for oxygen. He opened his eyes enough to see Nya rush back to his side, her eyes wide with worry as she dropped back to her knees and scooped up his hands. 

The feeling continued for hours, persisting as the sun began setting behind the waves flooding the city, long after the rest of the team had fallen asleep. Jay kept his eyes shut, focusing all of his attention and energy on his uneven breathing, but Nya never left his side. She never fell asleep, she never let go of his hand. He could sense her mind racing, but the focus that he had placed on breathing made him incapable of telling her not to go through with whatever she had been planning since her conversation with Bentho. Maybe if he had been able to speak, she wouldn’t have gone through with her plan.

Nya’s breath was warm against Jay’s cheek as she leaned in, chuckling softly. “I wish we had more time… but we never seem to get a break,” she whispered, squeezing Jay’s hand before letting go, bringing both of hers to his face as she pressed a kiss to the corner of his lips. Jay could feel the dampness of tears on her lips. He pushed his eyes open, trying his best to sit up, to beg Nya to stay by his side. But his vision was blurry, his entire body weakened. All he could do was watch as Nya made her way to the door, looking back once more as she walked out of it. 

No…

Jay’s eyes slid closed again, a heavy feeling of powerlessness overcoming him. Then, he felt a pulling in his lungs, forcing him to take a deep breath. His eyes flew open, his entire upper body being lifted into a sitting position as water made its way up his throat and out of his mouth, floating in the air in front of him for a moment before falling into his lap, soaking him. Jay coughed, taking in gulps of air. He had forgotten what a luxury it was to breathe. 

“What happened?” 

“The water in his lungs is drawn out!” 

“How?”

A burst of blue light filtered through the window, pulling the team’s attention to the water outside, where Nya was swirling in a tornado of liquid Spinjitzu. 

“No!” 

“What is she doing?” 

“She’s attempting to merge with the sea,” Bentho said, his voice panicked. “But it is something that can never be undone. She will be lost forever .” 

Jay’s heart, having just returned to its normal rhythm with the rush of oxygen pumped back into it, skittered to a stop. No…

“We must stop her!” Master Wu said, running out of the door, the entire team following him out, leaving Jay alone on the couch. He shifted slightly, looking out of the window as the blue light surrounding his Yang grew brighter.

“Nya…?” he muttered, shading his eyes from the light, then standing up and moving slowly to the window, leaning against it for stability. Nya glowed in the water, her body consumed by her element, swirling around her as she was enveloped by the sea. She swam around a bit, adjusting to her new form, before her attention finally landed on Jay. Nya’s watery lips curled into a smile, her glowing eyes lighting up as she swam up to the building. She rested her hand against the pane of glass where Jay’s was sitting, supporting his waterlogged body. Her eyes softened, the swirling marks on her cheeks crinkling with her grin. Jay’s heart swelled as he looked on, with admiration for all that she had done, with love for all that she had given up, then with fear for what Benthomaar had said. 

Was she truly lost forever? She was right in front of him.

Outside, a roar ricocheted around in the stormy air, pulling Nya’s attention away from Jay. She paused for a moment, her eyebrows furrowing with anger. 

“Nya, wait! ” Jay said, pounding both fists on the glass. It was a fruitless goal, as Nya didn’t look back before she shot away in a tidal wave of power that knocked Jay back onto the carpeted floor of the office building. “ Woah! ” 

By the time Jay got his bearings and looked back out the window, searching the sea around the city for the love of his life, she was gone. Forever. Just like Benthomaar had said.

Chapter Text

Jay huffed, the auburn hairs of his tall ponytail falling from the knot to curtain his face, covered in sweat and blotchy red marks. “Why did you drag me here?”

Nya turned, looking down at Jay from above, having been a few steps ahead of him the entire trek up the staircase. “ Drag you? You’re the one who said we needed a place to lay low. I’m the one who found a place.”

Jay rolled his eyes, his complaints following Nya up the stairs as she turned, shaking her head with frustration and taking the steps two at a time. “Yeah, when you said you knew a place, I thought you meant like… a secret hideout that wasn’t at the top of an endless staircase.”

Nya chuckled dryly. “The staircase ends eventually, Jay.”

“Not my name, lady.”

“For the last time, I’m not calling you Rogue . You answer to Jay and you have it as your high score title on that Gala..whatever. Clearly, you don’t like your secret identity as much as you make it seem.” 

Jay glared at her, filling Nya with pride. She enjoyed getting under his skin, giving him a taste of his own irritating medicine. “Fine, whatever. Doesn’t mean I believe that you didn’t bring me here for a slow, agonizing death by staircase.”

“Is it too late to push you down it?” Nya asked, turning slightly to smirk at Jay. He grunted as if he didn’t believe she had it in her, but his hand gripped the wall until Nya turned back and continued walking. 

As they reached the top of the lighthouse, Nya ran her fingertips along the bottom of the trapdoor above her head, her nails hooking beneath the groove of the handle as she pushed it open and hoisted herself through. It was exactly as she remembered, even though she hadn’t been in the small room at the top of the lighthouse in years. She took a deep breath, the musty salt air hitting her nostrils, throwing her right back into the last time the lighthouse had been used as a safehouse by her and Jay. 

She took another deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut, forcing the memory to retreat into the back of her mind, where it had been locked away for years. 

“Do you remember any of this?” Nya asked, turning to Jay as he lifted himself through the trapdoor, letting it slam closed behind him as he stood up and looked around. He shook his head, tilting his head as he looked at Nya. 

“Nah, my head’s like a steel trap,” he said, pressing his pointer finger into his temple. “Except… nothing’s locked in there.” 

“Do you ever think that the memories are in there and you just can’t get to them?” Nya asked, watching as Jay’s lip twitched, then he shrugged. Like he hadn’t thought of it that way. “Your metaphor is very flawed,” she said with a teasing grin, walking to the open side of the lighthouse, the emptiness in the wall serving as a natural window. She looked down at the expanse of ocean surrounding them, the waves crashing over and over into the rocks. When she turned to look back into the room, her attention caught on something she thought would’ve been long gone. A painting of her. Done by Jay when he was the lighthouse’s resident. Nya walked over to it, scooping it up and running her fingertips along the grooves of the oil paint that made up her face and hair, captured in a frozen smile forever. Then, she saw another one beside it. A self portrait. “Does this ring a bell?” she asked, picking up the painting of a younger Jay, half of his face covered with a beard, the same freckles worn by the version of him standing in front of her peeking out from behind the thick hair.

Jay turned, pulling his gaze away from the sea that he had been studying with a furrowed brow. His eyes raked over the painting in Nya’s hands, his expression unreadable. “No,” he muttered, turning back to the window. The wind caught his next words, bringing them to Nya’s ears even though he was turned away from her and speaking softly. “It looks like shit.”

“Well, you did it, so…”

“Again with the lying,” Jay said, his tone uneven. Nya could tell that she had accidentally stuck a nerve. It seemed like it happened more often than not, even though Jay was so guarded. She stepped across the lighthouse, standing beside him as he looked out the window, refusing to turn to her. 

“I’m sorry. I just… I don’t know how to go about all of this.”

“Right. Because it’s all about you,” Jay snapped, turning to her. Nya swore she saw his eyes glow red for a moment, and she took a half step back. “You ninja are always finding ways to make this-” he pointed at his head. “-about you. But it’s not about you, because I have no idea who you people are.”

“Jay…”

“I’m here because of the mission. Because you’re paying me. Then, I’m going back to my real life,” he said, his brow stern. 

“This is your real life,” Nya whispered, trying to catch Jay’s eye. He glared at her out of the edge of his. “Here. On adventures… with me.”

“With you?” Jay asked, turning to her fully. Nya braced herself for the harsh words she knew he was about to hurl at her. “I’ve already told you, there’s nothing here between you and me,” he said, making the mistake of letting his eyes drop down to Nya’s lips. Classic Jay Walker. Nya smirked. 

“Really? Do you really believe that?” she asked, putting her hand on the ledge between them, moving closer. She tilted her head at Jay, who widened his eyes as her hair fell over her shoulder. Then, he seemed to throw caution to the wind, dropping the pretense that he didn’t feel anything for her. He reached forward, his hands flying to her cheeks, and kissed her. 

Nya chuckled into Jay’s lips as she kissed him back, grabbing at his hips through his mercenary attire. It was stronger, heavier than the last time they kissed. Nya could feel his sides flexing as he shifted her slightly, their argument continuing with their lips instead of their words. 

“You better not be trying to push me out the window right now,” Nya muttered as her back was pressed against the wall of the lighthouse. Jay’s hands moved to hold her shoulder and the back of her neck, his lips moving to the edge of her grin.

“I wouldn’t dare,” he murmured, his voice gravelly as his teeth grazed along Nya’s jaw. She shuddered under the touch, tugging Jay by his waist, wordlessly begging to reconnect their lips. He did so willingly, the roughness of his brushing along the smoothness of hers. Nya was in the middle of moving her hand up torso under his top, feeling the added muscles under his bare skin, when they were interrupted. 

Jay tugged his face away from Nya’s, whipping his head around to look around the lighthouse, his eyes suspicious. Nya giggled as his ponytail brushed against her cheek. “Whoever you are, come out!” he said, taking his hands off of Nya as he turned fully, revving up lightning on his fingertips. Nya reached for her emergency knife tucked into her waistband. After a moment of silence, broken only by the crackling of Jay’s element, a figure popped out of the trapdoor. 

“I am Zane! Built to protect those who cannot protect themselves.” Nya burst into laughter as she took in the dingy, copper version of their nindroid friend. She was shocked that Echo Zane had lasted so long, through the timeline long passed, through the years since Jay had lived there on his own, through the merge. 

“What the hell is that?” Jay asked, not shaking the lightning loose from his fingertips. Nya put her hand on his shoulder and he tensed, then released the elemental electricity.

“It’s Echo Zane. Just like our Zane. Just… a backup made by Zane’s father. It’s a long story,” she said, giving up quickly as Jay raised an eyebrow at her. 

“And you trust this thing?” 

“Of course I do,” Nya said, pushing herself away from the wall to approach Echo Zane, putting a hand on his metal shoulder. He flickered his eyes at her in greeting, his tin smile fixed to his face. When she spoke, her teasing tone was back. She smirked at Jay. “It’ll be nice to have someone here to hide out with besides you.” 

He rolled his eyes, a whisper of a smile playing on his lips as they settled in for the long hideaway.

Chapter Text

Jay’s heart threatened to beat out of his chest as he raised his fist to knock gently on the door. Hushed voices swirled around in the room behind it before it was carefully opened, just a crack to show Lloyd’s face peeking through. 

“What is it?” he asked, his eyes turning directly to his classic worry.

“Umm. Can I see her?” Jay asked, fiddling with his tie before remembering how long it had taken Zane to fasten it. He let his hand drop down beside him. 

Pixal’s face popped up in the sliver of the room, her chin brushing Lloyd’s blonde waves, which had been hair-sprayed in place. “Traditionally, that is bad luck.”

Jay groaned as Skylor’s head appeared in the door, below Lloyd so all he could see was their three frowns as they surveyed him disapprovingly. Skylor squinted up at Jay before simply stating “No, Jay.”

“Oh, for FSM’s sake, can you just send Kai out?” Jay asked, knowing that as the bride’s brother, Kai would side with the rest of the bridesmaids, but as one of his groomsmen, he would at least consider letting Jay in before saying no. 

Skylor sighed and turned her face into the room. “Fireball, you’re tappin’ in. The spark plug wants to see you,” she said, pulling away from the crowd in the doorway and tugging Pixal with her. Jay could hear Nya’s laugh floating through the room, sending a flurry of butterflies loose in his stomach at the musical sound as Kai appeared beside Lloyd in the doorway. 

“No, Jay.”

“Kai, you didn’t even let me say anything!” Jay whined. Kai’s face remained unchanged, unsympathetic, but a tiny teasing smile was creeping onto his lips. 

“Because it’s bad luck, Jay!”

“Well, we have the worst luck!” Jay protested, his hands flying up in his defense. “Maybe this will counteract our bad luck and turn into good luck.”

“He has a point,” Nya’s voice called through the door, making her brothers turn into the room to look at her. The three siblings seemed to engage in a wild nonverbal exchange, by the looks of Kai and Lloyd’s rapidly changing facial expressions that Jay could see, before the red and green ninja turned back to the groom. 

“Fine. Bride’s orders,” Kai said, opening the door and letting Lloyd, Skylor and Pixal step out past him before taking a step towards Jay, who was eye level with his spiky, gelled-up hair. He swallowed nervously and grinned at his fellow ninja. “You have five minutes, apparently that’s the cut off before bad luck kicks in,” he said with a shrug, then jabbed his finger into Jay’s face. The lightning ninja flinched back. “But no funny business.”

“I promise,” Jay said, grinning as Kai finally got out of his way, opening up the space in the door for him to step through it. “Thanks, Kai!” he said, closing the door behind him to box out the group in the hallway. When he turned into the room and finally laid eyes on Nya for the first time that day, his heart skipped multiple beats.

Nya sat by the window, her position casual despite the un-casual dress she wore as she turned to Jay in the doorway. She grinned across the room at him, classic dusty pink lipstick outlining her perfect smile. Her hair was half up in her usual style, with the rest falling down her back to hang around the lace of her dress. Jay melted at the sight of her.

“Oh, wow,” he said, pressing one hand over his heart as he stepped further into the room. He had to make sure that his heart had started beating again, and it danced under his fingertips on his chest. “You look beautiful.”

“You’re not so bad yourself,” Nya said, standing up and scooping up the skirt of her dress so she could more easily cross the floor. Jay grinned at the blue flats she wore beneath it, her ‘something blue’ representative of their shared favorite color. “I’d kiss you, but I don’t wanna mess up my makeup.”

“Darn,” Jay said as Nya joined him in the middle of the room, settling for letting his hands rest casually on her hips. “Well, in that case. I really should get going.”

Nya rolled her eyes. “You weren’t here for that, anyways. Not with Kai out front. You just know he has his ear to the wall right now.”

Jay smirked, turning to the closed door and let out a dramatic, high-pitched moan. Someone in the hallway smacked the door, and Kai’s voice followed it.

“Stop that!”

Jay and Nya giggled and turned back to each other, Nya’s hands finding their way to Jay’s hips to mirror his stance. “How are you feeling?”

“Like the wait ‘till the ceremony is taking way too long,” Jay said, pursing his lips into a grin. “Ma hasn’t stopped crying. Last time I checked, my Dad and your mom were trying to calm her down, but your mom was crying too, so… it wasn’t working well.”

Nya chuckled. “At least that means your mom can’t tell anyone about the time she and your dad visited the monastery and she walked in on us in the old training room.”

Jay groaned, his cheeks burning at the memory. Master Wu had insisted they take all the doors off of the indoor training rooms afterwards, and Jay and Nya still hadn’t heard the end of it. His face flooded with blush at the mere thought of his mom telling the story to every guest she encountered. “I thought we agreed never to speak of that.”

“Sorry,” Nya said, moving her hands to settle on the small of Jay’s back as she shifted her attention back to the previous topic. “I can’t wait, either.”

Jay smiled at her, the crinkle of his eyes as electric as his element. “You know, I’m starting to wish we just ran off and eloped, like you said.”

Nya remembered the conversation well. They had been taking a break from rebuilding the monastery, sitting on a grassy hilltop looking out at the clouds, savoring the moment of calm. She had suggested that they pack a bag and make a run for it. That they would come back to the monastery fully built with rings on their fingers and love in their hearts. Jay hadn’t gone for it.

“And do you remember what you said when I suggested it?” Nya asked, a smile creeping onto her lips as Jay groaned. 

“That I didn’t wanna miss out on seeing you in your dress.”

“Exactly,” she said, running her fingertips over the white lace of the bodice. Jay’s eyes followed their path, his lips turned permanently upward in agreement. “I’d say it’s worth the hassle of our families,” she said, eyes shooting over Jay’s shoulder as Kai pounded on the door, making his presence known. She rolled her eyes as she turned back to Jay.

“What about shimmying down the fire escape? Think we could pull it off and get outta here?” he asked with a smirk. 

“Your mom would kill you. And then my mom would kill you. And then, Kai would bring you back from the dead and punch you in the face,” Nya said, clicking her tongue with a smile as Jay nodded along, knowing that she was right. As always. “And I know you can’t resist being the center of attention.”

Kai banged on the door again. 

“Two minutes!” his voice said through the door. Jay inhaled, his lips pursed, and took a hand off of Nya’s hip to reach into the pocket of his dress pants.

“Okay, I did come here for a reason,” he said, taking the small box and passing it to Nya. “Something for you to wear during the ceremony.” Nya held the box in both of her hands as she popped it open, gasping with a grin.

“You fixed it!” she shot her gaze up to Jay, who beamed and nodded as she ran her fingertips over her half of their matching Yin-Yang pendants. When she had returned from her merged state, she had been thrilled to see that her half hadn’t been lost at the bottom of the sea, but the pressure of being so far down had caused it to crack. Jay had been tinkering with it for weeks, trying to figure out how to fix the pendant without leaving an ugly welding mark across it. Apparently, he had found a solution, because if Nya hadn’t known any better, she would have thought it had never been broken in the first place.

“I wanted to match,” Jay said, reaching under his pressed shirt to pull out his half of the pendant, hanging on the delicate golden chain to match Nya’s silver one. 

“I love you so much,” Nya said, resisting the urge to leap forward and smudge her lipstick across his face as she covered it in kisses.

“And I love you. Forever and ever,” Jay said, his lip catching between his teeth as he similarly stamped down his desire to kiss her. “You want me to put it on?”

“Mmhm,” Nya nodded, turning around and gently pulling her hair over her shoulder so Jay could fasten the silver chain around her neck. Her fingers flew to the medallion, caressing it gently with a smile. She turned around, beaming as she locked eyes with Jay. “How does it look?”

“Perfect,” Jay whispered, compromising their inability to kiss on the lips by taking Nya’s hand and brushing his lips across her knuckles. “You look absolutely perfect.”

Nya blushed, intertwining her fingers with Jay’s. She opened her mouth to say something else gooey and romantic, but the door flew open before she had the chance. “Time’s up, lovebirds!” Kai announced.

Jay and Nya whirled around to face the entrance, refusing to let go of each other’s hands. Nya glared at her older brother. “FSM, Kai!”

“Don’t blame me, blame you fiancé,” Kai said, leading the bridal party back into the room. Lloyd plopped down on the couch as he watched the exchange. “He’s the bad luck fairy.”

Jay opened his mouth to retort, but worried his soon-to-be brother-in-law would huck a fireball at him if he said anything too snarky.

“Fine.” Nya rolled her eyes, squeezing Jay’s hand in farewell. “Love you.”

“Love you, too. You look beautiful,” he said, leaning in to brush a kiss to the corner of her lips, which he had deemed safe. “See you out there,” he finished, finally letting go of Nya’s hands with another gentle squeeze and walking through the open door, turning just in time to see Nya smack Kai on the forehead, then catch his eyes. She blew him a kiss with a giddy grin, and he caught it, pressing his hand over his heart as Pixal closed the door in his face. 

Chapter Text

“I love you.”

“You don’t even know me.” He said, his eyes tired. 

Nya looked down, fiddling with the hem of her gi. She didn’t know what had possessed her to confess her undying devotion for Jay, especially since he had no recollection of their life together, and every mention of it shut him down. “That may be true, but I loved who you were before. And I would love who you are now, if you gave me the chance to know him.”

Jay rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest. “Again with the lies.” 

“I’m not lying to you,” Nya said, trying her very hardest to maintain a patient tone. What else did she have to do for him? She had been throwing herself into his arms - metaphorically, at least, because the new Jay was quick to shove her away whenever she got too close - for weeks, hoping to trigger a response. It never made a difference, his mental walls were too high and thick, but Nya would rather die than stop trying. She could never give up on her Jay, even if he had long forgotten her. 

Jay’s arms were still crossed tightly over his chest, his jaw tight, his brow low, but Nya swore she saw him peek over at her. Still, she knew better than to push him. She'd try again tomorrow. 

“I’ve gotta train,” she said quietly, picking up the bundle of soiled bandages that had been her initial reasoning for sitting on the edge of the couch with Jay. “Are you all set in here?” she asked, looking down at him. He had all he needed: his video games and his snacks. Anything else he ended up wanting, Nya knew that Jay would scream across the monastery for it. He didn’t look back at her as he nodded, and Nya dismissed herself to go let her frustration out on the training equipment in the courtyard. Her knuckles were bleeding hours later when she finally retired to her room, but Nya preferred that to tear tracks on her cheeks. 

The following weeks were the same, but Nya never gave up. She never let her frustration break through the progress she was making. She had always been stubborn and determined, and Jay was her most recent project. 

When he snarled at her as she rewrapped his bandages, claiming that she had pushed too hard on his broken foot, Nya didn’t give up. She held onto the fact that she was the only one he would let dress his wound as she swapped out the crusty gauze.

When he glared at her all through dinner after she tried to sit next to him and make polite conversation, Nya held onto the fact that at least he let her drag him to the dining room rather than taking his dinner on the couch.

When he tried to bite her as she reached across his lap as she cleaned the tables around the couch he had been carving a crater into, the movement was so Jay-like that it made her smile while he scowled at her. 

Through the weeks of healing and stinging words from her Yin, she never gave up on him. She couldn’t.

“Hey, Jay,” Nya said absentmindedly, walking into Jay’s makeshift bedroom to tend to his wound. She put down the tray that she had been carrying, lifting the cup of tea from it and passing it to Jay before going to work on his foot. Jay stared into the cup for a moment - as if he were assessing it for poison - before taking a sip. A small smile crept onto his lips. Nya held onto it, holding it close in her memories.

“You’re the only one who can make halfway decent tea in this place,” he muttered.

Nya shrugged. “You and I take it the same way. I’m surprised we have so much in common.” She had learned how to plant seeds without trampling them. She gently put out the details from their past without insisting that Jay had been present for them. It made him more willing to continue talking to her, less quick to shut down.

Jay was quiet as Nya unwrapped his bandages, watching her as he continued sipping his tea. Nya’s eyes widened as she exposed his foot, her gaze snapping up to meet his. Jay turned away quickly, pretending like he hadn’t been watching her.

“Jay… your foot’s healed.”

Jay looked back at her but didn’t meet her eyes, instead looking at his previous injury. “Huh, I guess it is.”

“But… I saw you limping from the bathroom an hour ago,” Nya pointed out, tilting her head as she studied Jay.

A tiny ghost of a smile tickled Jay’s lips. He wiggled his toes a bit, emphasizing the healed foot. “Weird.”

Something had changed. Nya couldn’t put her finger on it, but the energy between her and Jay was different. What she thought was a one-off stretched into days, then weeks. Slowly, but surely, Jay opened back up. He was still guarded, but something was different. Like an echo of his past self. 

So, when Nya jolted awake in the middle of the night and saw Jay standing in her bedroom, fully dressed and wide-eyed in the darkness, she knew it wasn’t to murder her in her sleep.

“Jay?”

“You’re asleep. You’re dreaming,” Jay hissed, shoving hair hair away from his face as Nya sat up, turning on the light. “You’re… no! Turn the light off, go back to sleep!”

In the warm light, Nya took in Jay’s appearance. His shoes were in, his uniform was laced up, his goggles were clutched in one hand.

“You’re leaving?” Jay’s shoulders slumped. He looked exhausted. Nya sat up fully, pushing the covers off of her legs. “Jay..?”

“I thought you’d be asleep.”

“You broke into my room in the middle of the night. I’m a ninja, remember?” Nya said, shifting to the edge of her bed and studying Jay without rising. “You really thought I’d sleep through that?”

Jay glanced at her, then shook his head. 

“Can you at least tell me why?” 

He turned his attention to her desk. Nya hadn’t noticed the addition, more focused with the love of her life standing in her room, attempting to walk back out of her life without detection. It was an offering in parting, a final goodbye that Nya would have found the next morning if Jay hadn’t woken her up while leaving.

Nya pushed herself off of her bed, her bare feet carrying her across the carpet to her desk. Jay stood, frozen, watching as she picked up what he had left for her. A note that simply read Nya -- I’m sorry in his typical chicken scratch and a tiny bundle of flowers. Forget-me-nots. 

Nya had no idea where he had gotten them from. They weren't growing in Zane’s garden, they weren’t sprouting up around the monastery, and she had kept an eye on him for the majority of the last few days, not giving him enough time to sneak away into the city. She could sense the intention behind the flowers. It would have been easy for him to grab any old weed from the backyard, or leave no flowers behind at all. But he had found them, a message to leave behind with the forget-me-nots. As if she ever could.

Jay turned to go, taking a long step to the door on his foot that had been healed for almost a month. Nya flicked her attention up from the flowers to Jay’s back, springing forward in desperation. She couldn’t lose him again.

“Jay!” Nya reached for his hand, pulling his attention back to her. His eyes were wide and unreadable in their glassiness. He looked from their intertwined hands to Nya’s face, his lips quivering. Her voice wavered on the edge of begging, and she attempted to swallow her sadness so it wouldn’t infiltrate her words. “Please don’t go.”

When Jay walked out of her room, Nya didn’t fight it. She knew that she would find him again, even if it took a whole lifetime of searching. She would never give up on him. She couldn’t. 

Nya’s acceptance of her abandonment didn’t make the ache of it hurt any less. From the middle of the night to the morning, when she would usually get up for training, Nya wept, clutching the note and the flowers as she buried her face in her pillow. Her eyes were puffy when she finally pulled herself out of bed, creeping down the hallway for breakfast with her teammates. She studied her feet as she walked past the open door of Jay’s room, knowing that it would sting too much to see the crater that he had left behind in the couch. 

Then, something caught her eye. A patch of blue and a ponytail in her peripheral vision.

“Nya! Tea!” Jay shouted, like he did every morning. Nya turned her full attention to the room, her eyes wide as she took in Jay sprawled out on the couch, video game controller in hand, discarded cup of tea on the table in front of him. “Frog man can’t brew a good cup of tea if his life depended on it!”

Nya’s lips moved in a silent question, her eyebrows scrunching. He was really there, sitting in front of her. Just as rude and slovenly as usual. If Nya didn’t have a tear-stained note and crumpled flowers to prove it, she would have believed that she had been dreaming the night before. 

Her disbelief quickly shifted into excitement, and she played along with Jay’s normalcy, putting a hand on her hip as she looked through the doorway at him. “Your foot works just fine, why don’t you come get some breakfast?”

Jay groaned, tilting his head back as he put down the remote. When he tipped his head back toward her and pushed himself off of the couch, he was grinning. He faked a limp on his way to the door, leaning in slightly as he passed her in the frame. “Just know that when my foot’s healed, I’m getting out of here.” 

Nya rolled her eyes, a lump rising in her throat. She shook her head and nudged Jay’s shoulder with hers. “I’d like to see you try.”

Chapter Text

Nothing could pry Nya away from Jay after he remembered their past. It had been sudden, a blow to the head had shaken recollection back into his mind, leading him to leap into Nya’s arms. Tears had flowed freely, kisses had been pressed to faces, necks, lips, hair and hands. I love you s had been stated over and over again, making up for time lost as they embraced. Nya hadn’t let go since. 

When they walked through the portal gate and down the steps into the monastery, Nya had her arm wrapped around Jay’s waist, just like when they brought the mercenary version of him back after the fight against Thunderfang. Only this time, his arm was slung around his shoulder as they nearly tripped down the steps. At the team’s celebratory dinner, Nya had her legs draped over Jay’s, her head rested on his shoulder, soaking in the vibration of his voice against her cheek as he spoke, taking in all that he had missed in the years of separation. When Jay had gone to shower off the grime that his rogue identity hadn’t payed any attention to, Nya held his hand through the curtain. When she woke up the next morning, she desperately reached around the sheets beside her to make sure that their reunion hadn’t been a hopeful dream. Thankfully, the reality Nya woke up to was just as sweet, and she relaxed when her fingers brushed against the warm skin of Jay’s back. She rolled over with a smile, watching as he snored gently, his face pressed into the pillow. For the next three hours that Jay continued sleeping beside her, Nya ran her fingers through his long hair. It was something that she had wanted to do ever since he took off his wide hat in the middle of the desert, something that the rogue version of him had never let her do. She moved her hand to his cheek as he woke up, shifting and blinking the grogginess out of his eyes and grinning up at her. It felt like the sun was rising across his face. Nya couldn’t get enough of it.

She finally let Jay go as they got ready for an outing with the team, pulling on casual clothes and chatting about nothing of substance. Nya was shocked at how quickly they fell back into old habits. 

“Nya… have you seen my Yang necklace?” Jay asked, running his hand along the bright blue neckline of his t-shirt as he stepped out of the bathroom attached to Nya’s bedroom, where she had been putting up her hair, watching her reflection in the vanity mirror above her desk. She looked at the mirrored vision of Jay over her shoulder, her eyes widening momentarily as she turned. 

“What? No. That’s weird,” Nya said. It was a straight up, bold faced lie. She had swiped it from around Jay’s throat as he slept the night before, putting her ninja skills to good use as she unclasped the chain and pulled it off without him waking up. She knew that she needed the time it would take him to find it to stall. She was on a time crunch. Nya knew that the only way she could beat Jay to their second proposal was to steal the pendant from him before he could drop back down on one knee and pop the question. Again. This time, she was determined to be the first one to ask. “Did you have it when you got back?” she asked, standing up and walking across the room to join Jay, slipping her hand into his. His eyebrows were low with worry.

“Yeah. I had it on last night…” he said, squinting as his hand trailed up to his neck.

“Maybe it fell behind the bed?” 

“Maybe. I’ll look,” Jay said, pulling away from Nya’s hands to look behind the unmade bed. Nya tightened her grip on his fingers to stop him from a fruitless search. 

“Don’t you think we should get going? The team’s probably waiting for us,” Nya said, a pain rattling in her heart as Jay turned back to her, looking like he was on the verge of tears. She’d have to give him the pendant back soon, or she feared he would have a nervous breakdown. “We’ll find it, don’t worry.” 

“I’m sorry,” Jay whispered, letting Nya pull him to the hallway. She turned, tugging their intertwined hands into her body and wrapping her arms around him. He leaned into the touch, his chin dropping to her shoulder. “I don’t know what happened.” 

Nya had a feeling that Jay was referring to more than the lost necklace, and another wave of guilt crashed in her gut. She pulled away, her hands making their way to Jay’s cheeks as she kissed him, speaking wordlessly with her lips pressed to his. “You have nothing to apologize for, Jay. I love you, that’s never going to change.” 

Jay’s glassy eyes softened as he smiled, leaning in to kiss her again before Kai passed them in the hallway, wrinkling his nose and telling them to hurry up and stop making out in the middle of the monastery. Nya rolled her eyes and shot a tiny blast of water at her brother, then tugged Jay down the hallway after him.

Unlike Jay, Nya didn’t wait until they were in the middle of battle to ask him to spend forever with her. She knew what it was like to miss him, and she didn’t want to waste any of their precious time together. She didn’t even wait until the end of the day to ask him. 

They were sitting on the swing in the courtyard, a light breeze pushing them back and forth as they watched the sunset in near-silence. Jay’s head was on Nya’s chest, her arm wrapped around his shoulders with her cheek resting on his curls. The air was warm around them, scented with jasmine blooming in the pots around them. Nya smiled as she drew tiny circles on Jay’s bicep with the hand curled around his body, the other one clutched in his, tracing the scars and freckles along the back of his hand. As she watched a pair of sea birds fly across the golden sky in front of them, she knew that the perfect moment had arrived. 

“Jay?” she whispered, worried for a moment that Jay’s silence had been brought about by him falling asleep in her arms. She knew better than to expect him to be quiet for so long, so she was shocked when he lifted his head. 

“Yeah?” 

“I need to ask you something important,” she said, shifting so that she and Jay were sitting side-by-side on the swing, their knees brushing together as they pointed their bodies to one another. Nya clasped both of Jay’s hands as he waited patiently, his expectant eyes twinged with the tiniest bit of worry. It seemed to be present in his expressions more often than not, and Nya knew that it was because of the overwhelmingness of his memories returning to him. All that he had done, all that he had missed out on. She needed him to know that she loved him through it all, no matter what. Forever wasn’t long enough. “Jay, you make me so happy every day. When we’re not together, I miss you so much that I feel like part of me is missing.” 

Nya recalled the words of Jay’s proposal from years before, the words that had held onto through the years away from him, her mind retracing the lines as her fingers traced her pendant. Every night, over and over. The words became part of her. 

She watched as Jay’s eyes widened with recognition, the guilt and fear vanishing from them as a smile crept onto his lips. Nya gripped his fingers with her own grin as she went off the script that he had laid out long ago. 

“Every day without you felt like an eternity. Every minute I wished that you were by my side. You make me better, we lift each other up. You make me feel whole, and I never want to be without you ever again,” she said, letting go of one of Jay’s hands to reach into her pocket, pulling out the stolen half of their matching pendants. Jay’s eyes widened into comical circles, his mouth falling open in a surprised smile. “Will you be my Yin?”

Jay took the pendant, running his finger along the smooth metal. Tears sparkled in his eyes when he looked back at Nya, who felt a swell of emotion push through her chest and into her throat, catching behind her tongue. “Yes!” he said, springing forward to wrap his arms around Nya, who immediately returned the embrace, a choked, watery chuckle escaping her lips. The swing creaked in support as Jay’s arms tightened around Nya’s shoulders, hers digging into the fabric covering his back. They held each other for a long moment, their hugs making up for lost time. “Of course, Nya. Always.”

Nya pulled back, running her hands up Jay’s side to his collar, tugging him in for a kiss. A long, sweet kiss that they both cried and smiled into, which dissolved into laughter when a tearful hiccup escaped from Jay’s lips, pushing his and Nya’s teeth together with a clink. He brought his hand to his lips with a grin, checking for chipped teeth, then swiped a finger across Nya’s lips in apology. Not even the interruption could force her lips to turn down. 

“So… you stole this?” Jay asked, holding up the pendant, which Nya hadn’t taken off of the chain that hung around Jay’s neck. She had no doubt that he would say yes, and she was glad to be proven right as he slipped it over his head, letting it fall back into its rightful place. 

Nya rolled her eyes playfully, reaching forward and pressing her hand to the necklace, the weight of her touch resting over Jay’s heart. It was racing through his shirt. “Maybe. I had to make sure you didn’t beat me to the proposal again.”

Jay smirked. “It’s probably for the best. I wanted to ask you as soon as I saw you again,” he said, putting his hand over Nya’s on his chest. “But I’m glad we’re even, now.” 

Nya leaned in to kiss him again, never wanting to go so long without brushing her lips to Jay’s ever again. They felt right against hers, warm and perfect, like her home. She and Jay were one once again. Forever, this time. Nya would make sure of that.

Chapter Text

“Hey, Nya?”

She turned, preparing for Jay’s typical morning complaining. Ever since they had brought him back from the first realm to nurse his crushed leg, Jay had complained. And yet, he was still here, even after the splint was taken off. “Yeah?”

“When did this happen?” he asked, gesturing at his braid.

“Last night. You finally caved and let me take a brush to the disgusting ponytail,” Nya teased. Jay offered her a smile in return, but his eyes were still filled with questions.

“Right… but I meant, um, when did it get so long?”

Nya shrugged. “I don’t know, you’ve been super secretive about it. All you said was that it added to your ‘secret man of mystery’ persona, but then you whined the entire time I was brushing it. It really shattered the illusion.” Jay blinked at her. “Okay, um, no offense, but you’re acting weirder than usual. What’s up?”

“My head feels funny,” Jay muttered, pressing his fingers to the middle of his forehead then flopping down on the couch, landing in Nya’s lap. She looked down at him with wide eyes as he settled in, his own eyes sliding closed. “I think I might’ve hit my head when I ran into the wall earlier.” Nya continued staring down at him, shocked into silence by his odd behavior. For the better part of a month, he had been spitting and snarling at the team every time they tried to talk to him. It was like being roommates with a feral stray cat. Now, he was splayed across her legs like a content kitten. Jay peeked up at her. “What?”

“I’m just… not used to you being so chatty.”

“Are we talking about the same me here?” Jay asked, smirking up at her. “Mouth of Lightning, remember?”

“I just mean.. the other day you tried to bite me when … wait,” she stared down at Jay, her mind catching up on his words. “ What did you just say?”

“Mouth of Lightning,” Jay said, blinking back at her. “Y’know, Master of Blabber and whatnot. You guys say it so much, but you don’t expect me to internalize your jokes?” he asked, grinning to show Nya that he wasn’t actually hurt by the teasing. She was more focused on the fact that he was bringing up aspects of a past that his rogue self had deemed artificial. Nya stared down at Jay, her mouth opening and closing as she tried to put together her thoughts. “What’s wrong?” 

“You… what? What happened to you since dinner?” she asked, her mind wandering back to how Jay had snapped at her and stormed away from the table, his braid swinging as he left, cracking into Nya’s guarded heart. Somehow, he had done a complete one-eighty overnight to become the version of Jay sprawled out in her lap.

“I dunno…. I hit my head last night.” he prodded at the space between his eyebrows. “And this morning I tripped and fell down a few steps before I caught myself. But… I’m fine now.”

“You’re more than fine, you…” she held his face, squishing his cheeks as he looked back at her, his electric blue eyes sparkling with confusion. “ You remember?”  

Jay’s lips puckered slightly as Nya pushed his cheeks together, tears threatening to spill from her eyes. “....yeah?”

“Holy FSM,” Nya whispered, leaning down and pressing a kiss to Jay’s lips, the motion she had wanted to do ever since she had first seen him at the tournament, back before the merge had thrown a detour into the plans for their life together. Between kisses, she begged him for confirmation. “You remember?” 

Jay squinted at her, his eyebrows scrunched together at her words. “Nya… what are you talking about? Remember what?” he asked, pushing himself up into a sitting position, shifting so that he was beside her instead of across her lap. 

Tears bubbled in Nya’s eyes. Relieved, thrilled tears that mixed with the saddened ones as she remembered everything that had happened since the merge. She had no idea what had happened to Jay in the last ten and a half hours, but she didn’t care. She was too grateful that he was back in his mind. “Jay, honey… you- FSM, how do I explain this?” Nya squeezed her eyes shut, trying to come up with an eloquent way to sum up the craziness of the last six years, which Jay seemed to have forgotten. It seemed as though he had picked up right where he left off moments before the merge. “What’s the last thing that you remember? Before hitting your head?” 

Jay squinted up at the ceiling, thinking. “A weird rainbow storm.”

Nya sighed. “That was the merge. That happened years ago, Jay,” she said gently, taking a hold of his hand, running her fingertips along his freckled skin. Jay’s eyes widened. “And then… we didn’t find you until last year, and you… you…. something happened. I still don’t know what. But you didn’t remember any of us,” Nya decided not to bombard Jay right away with the details of his amnesia. She didn’t want to freak him out with the tournament, the shattering of his goodness, the unclear details of his life as a bounty hunter, his claims to always hate her… all of those details could be filled in later. “Not until now.” 

Jay’s brow crinkled, then his eyes widened, his mouth opening and closing quickly. Nya watched the range of emotions cross his face. “ I lost my memory ?” he asked, his voice pitched up in a shriek that shook the monastery. Nya nodded, reaching forward to wrap her arms around him in an attempt to ease his panic. Maybe she had gone about this wrong . 

Jay was uncharacteristically quiet as Nya held him, practically hearing the sound of his mind racing. After a few moments, Kai and Cole appeared in the doorway over Jay’s shoulder, breathing heavily as they took in the scene. 

“You okay, Nya? We heard yelling,” Kai said, side eyeing her as she embraced Jay. He raised an eyebrow at her as Cole opened his mouth in a silent question. 

Nya swallowed, smiling as salt water pooled in her eyes once again. “He remembers,” she whispered, clutching Jay’s shoulders. 

“What?” 

“He remembers .”

“ He remembers? ” 

“I’m right here, guys,” Jay said, chuckling as he pulled his face out of the warm spot between Nya’s shoulder and her neck, which he had burrowed into. He looked across the room at his teammates, flashing them a classic Jay Walker grin, a complete shift from his previous spiral. “I hear I’ve missed some things?” 

“Holy shit he’s back!” Cole shouted, leaping through the door and pounding on top of Jay and Nya on the couch with a hearty chuckle, followed by a groan as Kai jumped on top of them, the four ninja’s legs tangling together as they laughed through their long overdue reunion, all of their missing pieces falling into place. 

Chapter Text

When the strip turned pink, Nya’s heart stopped. It picked up moments later, slamming itself against the inside of her ribcage as she lifted the test from the bathroom counter to study the lines which proved that she was - undeniably - pregnant. 

“Oh, First Master,” she said, her fingertips running across her grinning lips as she blinked, looking back at the lines of the test. Still bright pink. Nya put down the test, moving her hand to caress her abdomen. It was too early to matter, she knew that, but she still felt giddy at the thought of a baby clinging to her insides. “Holy shit.”

The week of symptoms made sense with the confirmation, clicking into place. The missed period. The elevated tiredness after training, the aching muscles that made her want to curl up in bed and hibernate. The waves of nausea that rolled through her stomach when she was offered her favorite foods, the way she burst into tears and ran to her and Jay’s room at the thought of not getting to eat them. Holy shit. She was having Jay’s baby . Nya giggled, a giddy feeling enveloping her, cascading over the nerves that she was sure would continue plaguing her for the next months. 

It wasn’t like they had been trying, but they had stopped taking their regular precautions after the ceremony that officially made them one, with the villainous threats winding down providing them some peace. As a result, they had been talking about the future. A lot . Nya wasn’t worried about Jay’s reaction to the news, she was just freaked out about finding the perfect way to tell him.

She settled on simple, normal. They never really had a chance to be normal.

The boys were playing video games in the living room, their shouts echoing down the hallways of the monastery as Nya stepped into the doorway, taking in the scene. Cole and Kai were side-by-side on the couch, with Kai seconds away from taking his hand off of his remote to slap Cole with a ball of fire so he wouldn’t run ahead and get the kill onscreen. Zane, who had been sitting on the arm of the couch, moved down to sit between Cole and Kai, his attention not wavering from the screen. He even managed to double his score in the seconds that the movement took. Lloyd was in the armchair beside the couch, his legs draped over the side as he watched the screen, his eyes drooping shut, then snapping open as his teammates shouted at each other. Nya beamed as her eyes fell on Jay, who was sitting on the floor, his back propped against Cole’s legs. His tongue poked out from between his lips as he concentrated, squinting at the screen as an explosion covered it, signaling that Zane was victorious in the level. He whooped as the rest of the team groaned. Nya took the seconds before they booted up the game again as the opportunity to interrupt. 

“Hey, guys,” she said, stepping into the room. 

“Hey Nya,” they chorused back. Jay smiled lopsidedly up at her as she stood next to the couch, his glasses perched haphazardly on his nose. She had suggested that he invest in some blue-light blocking eyewear following the time he ran straight into a wall after a marathon round of Prime Empire, and it was one of the best ideas she had ever had. She was pretty sure the entire reason she was pregnant was because he wore those glasses. 

“You wanna play?” Kai asked, gesturing toward the coffee table, where extra controllers sat between empty cans of soda. Nya shook her head. Even after years of living with a group of rowdy guys who loved playing them, she had never gotten into video games. It was mostly because of the anger that boiled up in her when she wasn’t immediately good at the games, leading to a broken controller on more than one occasion when she had tried to play. 

“No, I’ll get the next one,” she said, knowing that nobody in the room believed her. Nya turned back to Jay, who was still studying her face through dough eyes. Her stomach erupted in butterflies. She lowered her voice as she spoke directly to her Yin. “Um… can we talk?” 

“ OoOooooh !” Cole and Kai teased from above Jay. Nya snapped her attention up to them, silencing them with a single glare before she softened her face and turned back to Jay, who was already putting his controller down on the coffee table and shifting to get up.

“You’re not in trouble, I promise. No matter what these clowns think,” she said, shooting Cole and Kai another look. They quickly looked away, acting as if they were engrossed in the paused television screen in front of them. Lloyd rolled his eyes and pulled his phone out of his pocket, clicking away at it. Nya reached out her hand to help Jay off the ground. 

“Will you be back?” Zane asked, turning to Jay and Nya as she gripped his hand. She shrugged. 

“Depends.” 

Jay turned to her, squinting at her lack of clarity in the nindroid’s question. But he trusted her, squeezing her hand in return as he turned to his fellow gamers. “Keep playing. But if you beat my high score, I’ll rewire you so you talk gibberish again.”

Zane scoffed at the blue ninja’s threat, turning back to the screen as he unpaused the game and he, Cole and Kai dove into another round. Nya guided Jay through the door, her heart pounding in her throat as they made their way to their room. Boom boom boom .

“You okay?” Jay asked as they stepped into the room, their hands still intertwined as Nya pushed the door shut. “Your hand’s shaking.”

Nya looked down, seeing her trembling fingers tangled between Jay’s steady ones. Boom boom boom . “Yeah, I’m fine. Do you wanna sit?” she asked, letting go of Jay’s hand and gesturing for him to take a seat on the blue quilt that covered the bed, a handmade wedding gift from Edna. He nodded, eyeing her with concern as he plopped down, pulling his glasses off. 

Nya moved to join him, but her feet felt like they were glued to the floor. Boom boom boom . She took a deep breath, running her hands along her abdomen subconsciously, letting excitement spark back up inside her as she focused on deep breathing. She worked hard to put her foot forward, stepping across the room to stand in front of where Jay sat on the mattress. 

“Nya, you’re obviously freaked out about something,” he said, eyes wide with anxiety as he reached for her hand, swiping his thumb along the back of it. Pops of electricity followed behind his touch as he lowered his voice. “You can talk to me. I’ll love you no matter what,” he promised.

“Jay, I…” Nya paused, the words getting caught in her throat. She breathed through them, her smile pulling at her lips as she moved her other hand so both of hers cupped Jay’s. “I’m pregnant.”

Jay’s emotions ran wild across his face, clear for Nya to watch. His eyebrows scrunched together as he took in the news, then un-creased as a tentative smile tickled his lips. His breath hitched. “We’re having a baby?” he whispered, his smile clear in the soft words. Nya sunk her teeth into her bottom lip and nodded, watching Jay’s eyes crinkle as his grin consumed his face. He shot up from the bed, his hands wrapping around Nya’s back as he pulled her into a tight embrace, lifting her feet off the ground with his enthusiasm. Nya giggled and hugged him back, nuzzling her face into Jay’s shoulder as warm, happy tears sprang forth in her eyes and he swung her back and forth gently for a few moments, then put her back down on the floor. As he kissed her, she could feel that he had started crying, too. The saline on their cheeks made her feel whole and hopeful as Jay moved his fingertips to brush along her abdomen. He looked at her through tear-soaked eyes, his smile electric. “How long?”

Nya shrugged, putting her hand on top of Jay’s. “Only about a month, I think. I’m not sure-” she was cut off by another kiss from Jay. She beamed into his lips as he tugged her toward the bed, sitting down and pulling away, shaking his head slightly in disbelief. 

“Holy crap ,” he murmured. Nya could see the news repeating over and over again in his head. “I’ve gotta start growing a beard.”

Nya giggled, tilting her head at him. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Nya, dads have beards,” Jay said, his tone implying that he was making an obvious connection. Nya breathed out a chuckle, his words hitting her. Dad , him. Mom , her. They were standing together on the precipice of something big, their biggest adventure yet. The beginning of something new.