Chapter Text
Nadakhan was defeated a few days ago.
Well, not really, that whole thing technically never happened.
Wishes, torture, the wedding, the poison; that was erased from existence, and it felt strange for that to be the case. Right now, he was just laid in bed as if (in his mind) just a day ago, he was in the middle of a world literally crumbling, Djinjago falling to pieces with Nya in his arms, poison on her chest.
It all hadn't really sunk in yet.
So he couldn't get up out of his bed or even open his eyes. He didn't feel like he should be doing any of that right now, it all felt too… normal.
When he was taken by Nadakhan, trapped on the Misfortune's Keep, he had a few nightmares.
Stuck there for days, he grew weaker and weaker. Each day was more cleaning, and the crew made sure each day was harder than the last - the more injured and weak he was, the more he worked, and the longer and longer it took.
Well, he had to get out of bed, they still had training, and the team doesn't stop for him to work out his feelings.
He jumped up, eyes half-open and the world blurry with the sleep still in his eyes. Everyone was still in their beds, so he had to be quiet while getting out the cabin. Jay didn't want to wake up early, but now, he was sure he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep.
Closing the creaky door, he left for the bathroom.
While captured on the Misofortune's Keep, he had a few nightmares. So injured, it was difficult to even sleep in the first place, and when he did, the injuries he'd endured during the day crept into his dreams.
Such as the bruises on his face, they would manifest as dreams about more ways Nadkhan - or any pirate on the ship - could inflict even more of them. He didn't want the bruises anymore, even the smallest cut, the way his eyes were dragged down by weights each night, but he could never go to sleep.
The nightmares were like a punishment for going to sleep, exposing himself to the dangers, even though his night in the cell was meant to be his break. They were never a break, just more torture to come, worse than anything in the day, because then, at least he had sunlight to know when they'd come, know when they're behind his back.
He rubbed his eye, the left one still closed with all the sleep sticking it together, and leaned on the mirror.
Since he got back, he hasn't had any nightmares about that timeline.
It felt weird, he had them every time he closed his eyes on that ship, but as soon as it was reversed, it was like his subconscious mind didn't know it happened either, but gruelling and terrifying at the front of his mind, it knew too well.
So he wasn't sure how to feel about everything. The timeline was erased, it all never happened, so should he be bothered by it?
He rubbed his eye once more, then looked at himself in the mirror.
And he looked fine.
Not like he did back then, and it was just so strange, like the universe was trying to tell him the trauma of all that wasn't real, that it really was just all in his mind - which now, it was. It was like if time had passed and the injuries had eventually healed, which they always do, but the memories were still fresh in his mind. Mind and body so disconnected.
He almost wanted to feel the wounds of that time, know that something more than his messed up mind knew of the ache at the bottom of the cell, knew the bruises from Scrap 'N Tap and not just the fear.
He didn't just survive it mentally, he did so physically, but with not even a scratch where it least mattered, it was like he never went through it at all.
It was selfish, really. Unlike many, he got out of those things alive, and now completely unscathed other than a few bad memories, but often, a scar was a sign you endured, you defeated a villain and saved Ninjago. Someone can bring it up and you can tell the story of how you persisted, but he couldn't do that. He could tell the ninja, but he was sure they wouldn't believe him just yet.
Maybe far in the future, he'd tell them when the memories weren't so terrorising in his mind.
Except, there were a few memories he didn't want to keep, he hoped they would fade away in a few years, but the worst memories love to hold on and continue to torture.
First, Nya.
Plain and simple - she died.
He brushed his teeth, not looking at the mirror once he remembered her dying frame on the ground, half-lidded eyes, weak and shaky hands caressing his teary cheek.
The poison on her chest stealing her breath away, and the wedding dress a few smidges too big for her.
He shuddered and spat out the toothpaste, a few minutes had gone by and he'd been lost in thought. Jay assumed thinking of this stuff would send him into a panic attack or something, but like his body, some part of his mind also didn't know that happened, the part that send your body into haywire and make the vitals go wild just at the thought of something.
Because he stayed calm as he put his toothbrush down and looked back up at himself, except, when he finally looked at himself, he noticed something.
"Wha…" he leaned in close, his voice still groggy and hair still a wild mess.
It was another memory he didn't want to remember, some moment on the Misfortune's Keep, a point that he really couldn't stop thinking about, and sent shivers down his spine despite his body not knowing how to respond that way to "fake" memories.
Again, he looked closer and tugged at his left eye, open now, no more crusty sleep keeping it shut.
"What the…" he mumbled, something was off, but maybe it was his half-awake mind.
He put his hand to the left side of his face, and… he couldn't see it. "Huh?" He processed for a second, before it hit and he jumped back and tumbled down to the bath behind him.
He couldn't see.
The memory he didn't want to remember was racing from the back of his mind to the front, the part where his brain noticed the fear and sent that shooting to his bodily functions. Heart racing, breath stumbling, he forgot all about the huge thud he made.
Trying to stand, it just made another thud as he could swear he felt all the weakness that had accumulated from the timeline; the useless legs as he dangled off the side of the ship with only his arms, the ball and chain dragging him down further, a weight that would never release.
He gripped the edge of the bath, but he only got half-way up before he flopped into the shower-curtain and sent it tumbling down onto him. His arms were weak and shaky like when Cole found him and he dragged himself from his corner to shout his name, only for it to come out as a question about if the ghost in the room was actually him - a hoarse and scared voice.
Cole.
He wanted Cole right now.
Because he couldn't sss anything out of his left eye just like he couldn't then. He grabbed at it, just in case he somehow woke up with an eyepatch on, but there was nothing there, not even a scratch like then, just… nothing, just his obvious lack of sight.
Cole found him back then, got him out of the wretched ball and chain, helped him walk out of Nadakhan'a chambers, and then got trapped in the Sword of Souls just to save him, because he had the slightest slither of hope that he had held on, and would still be waiting there to be saved.
He didn't know why Cole believed in him so much, but… maybe that meant he would believe this.
Nya immediately wasn't an option, because if she saw the lack of his vision returning from the erased timeline, how would she feel about the things that could come chasing for her?
He finally dragged himself up and left the messed up bathroom behind.
Quickly, he got halfway to the cabin and stopped, because Cole was out the room, closing the door behind him and rushing somewhere. He looked down, he hadn't noticed him, but he didn't want to hide, so he stayed there. "Jay, you okay? I heard a—"
He stopped when he looked at his face, his hands gripping his shoulders and face tilting from left to right in concern.
"What happened?" He softened, but the panic was louder. Jay's face was sweaty already, his breath was hitching and hiccuping, and he was hunched over, limbs shaking.
With each turn of his head, Cole's face faded into the blind spot, well, the entire blind half of his face!
"I- I- wha-" he stuttered, turning his head to his left just so he could see his other hand on his left shoulder. He was still blind, he couldn't see, and it was taking a moment to really settle in.
Except, his mouth worked quicker than his mind, he gripped Cole's shoulders and jumped forward, "I can't see!"
He chuckled, darting his eyes to his side, then spoke with a shaky voice, Jay still staring, "Jay… what?" He rubbed his eyes, he was still pretty tired too, he was only just woken up by a chaotic bang and rattle. "What do you mean you can't see?" Cole waved his hand over his face, but Jay slapped it away and scoffed, more sweat clinging to his face.
"I mean- I- I can't-" he shivered with each word, but realised no one would believe this, not even Cole, or… maybe he'd belive it was a serious medical emergency and rush him to a hospital when it was really just fragments of an erased timeline invading his life again. He groaned and waved his hand at his left, and with the other hand pointed to his eye, "I mean; I can't see out of my eye!"
Cole backed up a step and held his arms up, "Hey, maybe we should really tell Zane or Wu about that if it's true, seems pretty serious."
Jay groaned and leaned onto his shoulder, his head hunched over as he stared with his one good eye at the floorboards.
"Or go to a hospital." He added and grabbed Jay's arms, still sounding uncertain about it.
It seemed Cole wasn't giving him what he wanted, but he was now realising what he wanted wasn't possible or even made any sense right now. He had thought back to when he rescued him, he got him standing, then told him not to worry about who was to blame or what went wrong, then he said they can laugh about all this when it's behind us.
The doubts he had back then were always tormenting him when he was captured, but now, after the timeline was erased and none of those things truly mattered anymore, screaming to Cole about being blind in one eye wouldn't come with words of comfort, it would come with panic and urgency, because to an average person, they'd be shooting right down to the hospital.
"I- I don't need to go to a hospital, I want to know what I can do-" his panic was interrupted with Cole rushing around back to the Cabin.
"I'm gonna get Zane!" He shouted at the early time of five in the morning.
Okay, he was getting Zane.
He didn't want that, but he felt helpless right now.
Then, he stood there for approximately five seconds before Zane came running out straight at Jay, panic on his face from afar, but the closer he got, the more straight-faced he got. It was clear he tried to hide the panic, but hey, he was only half-blind right now, he would notice.
"Jay, are you sure?" Zane stopped, he grabbed his shoulders firmly, which sent him bouncing back and forth a little.
"Sure… of- of what?" He chuckled, looking away. But he checked anyway. Still blind, got it. "Yes, I'm sure. I can't see a thing—"
"Then we must go." He stated, he grabbed his arm and dragged him through the Bounty, Cole following behind. He just had to be glad the other ninja weren't stumbling into this scene yet, with their panic, they weren't wasting any time by waking up the others.
"Go where?" He trembled, the rush down the hall with only one eye working was strange. Everything to his right felt too close, and he felt trapped and exposed with the lack of anything to his left - it wasn't darkness, it was just nothing.
Zane responded, "To a hospital!" but continued running, they got out onto the deck, cold air chilling his neck, and left him there with Cole when he stumbled down the ramp. It was a good thing they were by the docks and not floating in the air, their vehicles parked closed.
Then, it was just him and Cole at the deck when Zane was grabbing a vehicle. He stood to his left, his pestering, blind left, Jay fell in on himself, his head growing closer to his shoulders, and his arms wrapped around himself.
The memory hadn't had a chance to hit hard yet, his heart was beating too fast from this.
Maybe not from Zane rushing to get him to a doctor, but them being too aware, an explanation that may need to come. Now, he almost hoped that it was a very normal medical emergency, and not the effects of a wish from a Djin.
Unlike the bruises and cuts that showed he survived, he didn't want this, the reminder of the hook that teased around his eye, getting closer and closer, until it- he…
He froze when Cole put another arm on his shoulder, "Don't worry, Jay."
But he couldn't see his friend, only feel his hand on his back, hear his uncertain voice to the side. Then, he started to really tremble, and his eyes watered, only his right eye though, the seeing eye, but Cole noticed either way.
It was meant to be over, that's why he cried.
He leaned into Cole and trembled harder, "I can't- I can't see you."
—
"They can't find an explanation." Jay told Cole and Zane in the waiting room, he made them stay there while he was checked out, just in case… some questions were answered, and he had to answer honestly.
But none of that ever came up, so maybe he would have liked for Zane or Cole to stay by his side with the scary doctors and strange machines.
He'd been in the hospital for a few hours now, there was a lot of waiting for the answers between tests. Jay often wanted to call Cole or Zane inside, but he always hesitated, and eventually, it was done.
He was quick to get inside, because suddenly going blind in one eye could either be some strange coincidence, or imminent death because of some messed up thing in your brain. So they did some tests, propped him on a scanner, all that jargon, but they couldn't find anything wrong, just his blind eye, and yes, they confirmed it was blind. He really couldn't see, and they didn't know if it would return.
"Do they know if your vision will return?" Zane asked, jumping from the seat.
Jay silently shook his head and pressed his hand to the left of his face, covering his eye, it didn't make a difference anyway.
They noticed, and Cole walked to his right side this time. "Are they done with tests? Can you go home now?"
He nodded again silently, and leaned a little closer into him, Zane came next, both making sure to be on his right. It was weird to not have anything to his left, now, knowing that it really is true and not a trick of his mind, it felt even emptier. "Yeah, I've signed the discharge papers, let's—" he shuddered and hugged himself, "let's just go home."
So they walked out, and he held onto Cole as hard as he could without making it seem like he was as scared as he really was.
Because really, this was so scary, there were no answers except from his wild theory about the injury from the erased timeline invading into this real, fixed timeline.
Surely, when they got home, with it being nearly nine in the morning now, they would be awake, panicking about where three of them had gone, why the bathroom was probably ransacked, three beds unmade.
"Did you tell the others?"
Zane walked ahead of them, he could tell Jay didn't want anyone or anything to his left right now, so with his right being occupied, there wasn't anything else to do. "Yes, I told them you had a small emergency and are at the hospital."
"Well, that's just going to freak them out!" he snapped.
"We can't just leave without telling them, that would have only made them panic more." He informed back, and Jay fell silent, tugging at the loose strands of his pyjamas. Right, he was still in his pyjamas, they all were, having rushed there in a panic. At least they had shoes on, he wouldn't like to be in a hospital barefoot.
"Did you…" he started, Cole held him closed, but not harder except for the small squeeze at his left arm with the arm that ran across his back. "Did you tell them what happened?"
Cole shook his head, "No, no, we kept it vague, told them you're…fine? That you probably didn't want anyone else coming, right?" Jay nodded back, he didn't want anyone else seeing him like this at all, or even knowing about this stupid bodily mishap.
But it wasn't just that, he was sure it was the past coming back, just in some strange , vague way.
Yeah, he would rather it just be two of them and not five.
They got to Zane's car - parked haphazardly half way in the lines - and got in, Cole basically carried him inside, despite his legs working just fine, then Zane put his seatbelt on.
Jay never made eye contact, it was all too humiliating, too real for something that had been erased from existence.
Before Zane shut the door, he grabbed his hand, "I… have an appointment, one week from now, to check things out again."
He smiled softly and knelt down, "Would you like anyone to come with you?"
Jay huffed out an attempt at a chuckle, "As if I can drive right now, yeah, but-" he hesitated while he fidgeted with the seatbelt, "can you, or- or any of you, can you come with me?"
"Of course." He replied immediately, then shut the door, leaving him and Cole in the backseat, his eyes gently watching him, obviously trying not to turn into a deathly stare.
The car started, and they drove, slower than the way there where the panic was high. A few hours ago, they'd rushed him into his car, got his seatbelt on like he was unconscious or writhing in pain, even though he felt… fine.
Physically, he felt fine, there was no pain, no differences in his vision that would indicate something messed up with his brain, just a lack of vision completely. It was strange to see them rush when all the hurt he endured in that time had already been forgotten; forgotten by his own body, the ground that had once been ascended in the sky, the teapot that was now lost.
No one knew what happened except for him and Nya.
And now, his eye that had been torn open by Nadkhan's hook.
But the pain of that moment didn't reside, it was just the aftermath, but not the scars, the blood, nor the screaming or squirming as he tortured him.
He put his hand to his eye again and leaned on the side, looking out the window. Looking anywhere was so weird, he wanted to avoid it completely, but even if he was completely blind, he would still see that hook in his mind, getting closer and closer until it hit.
Then, he wouldn't have the buildings zipping past him, the people walking by or the traffic right outside to distract him from that: it would just be him, the darkness, and the memories.
Or nothing, he wondered what it would have felt like if Nadakhan completely blinded him. Was it darkness, or just… nothing?
"Is this gonna…" he released his words, but not his tense shoulders. Cole and Zane hummed in acknowledgment, "Is this gonna affect how I can be a ninja?"
Zane looked to the back in the rear-view mirror, his eyebrows upturned, so he knew what he asked had a clear answer.
"As all things, you'll need time to adjust."
"But… I can fight?" He asked again, he couldn't lose this job, his family and friends that he fought with on a daily basis.
Just because of some stupid bit of his past that refused to leave him alone.
"'Course you can." Cole joined, leaning over and grabbing his shoulder again, they put him on the left side of the car in the back, so that he could at least add the person in the back. However, that just made the window much less distant unless he turned his head at it, when he looked straight ahead, it was just him and this car. "It's just gonna be a bit strange at first."
As he sat in the car, he realised he was asking this question to the nindroid and the ghost.
"Yeah… yeah, I'll train, I can get used to this." He stroked the bottom of his eye again, he almost wanted to feel the pain that should be coming with this. "Shouldn't be asking that to you two, you've had to adjust to… a lot."
Cole chuckled and looked down at his see through skin, "Ha, yeah, well, it's still a big thing to adjust to." He leaned in, he sat at the other side of the car, but not looking out the window, either ahead, or watching Jay in case he crumbled like he did before they left for the hospital. "It's a bit sudden."
With how sudden it was, he felt like he hadn't collapsed as far and as hard as he would.
But he already went through this; the blindness, the injury itself.
Except, back then he was fighting an evil Djin who ended up with infinite wishes, so he could either whine about his little vision loss, or ignore it and defeat the guy.
"It was hard to adjust to… this body, but I got there eventually." Cole said again, "It's always gonna be a bit strange, and comes with problems, like how I can't touch a drop of water or I'll go…" he imitated an explosion with his hands, "poof!"
Jay wanted to chuckle, but he hated how scared he was despite Cole being so calm about the idea of poofing into nothingness, while he was terrified at losing just half of his sight.
He wasn't blind, his eyes were perfect, it was just that one had gone from perfectly fine to completely useless when he woke up.
"It will take time, but you can adjust to anything. I belive that you can, Jay." Zane looked back with the mirror, the streets getting calmed as they got to the docks where the Bounty was anchored.
"Hey, even if you couldn't see a thing, I know you'd find some way to fight through that." Cole added and leaned over.
Jay's face grimaced and he gripped the seatbelt tight. "I don't want that thought in my head, thank you."
Cole froze, chuckled nervously and went back to his seat when Zane gave a glare for him to please wear his seatbelt correctly. "Right, sorry."
"We are here." He parked the car as close to the Bounty as he could, then as he got out, Cole kept him in there until Zane could open the door himself. Then, he looked down at him with the most concerned and pitiful glare be could imagine.
Jay sighed and gripped the seatbelt, turning his head back to look at the buckle, but now, with him on his left, he couldn't see where he was at all, his peripheral vision gone. Freezing, he sighed, and let him come forward, he appreciated how when he spoke, he leaned far enough so that his right eye could catch him.
"The others will certainly bombard you when we get inside."
"Maybe we should've messaged them, Zane." Cole grinned as he got out of the car.
Holding onto Zane when the cold air (but less cold than this panicked morning) hit his face, he sighed and touched his eye again, just one last time for the two people that had seen him the most vulnerable before the ninja tried digging into his mind even further. "Might as well get it over with."
—
As expected, the moment they walked inside, he was bombared with questions, worry, and people getting a poke out of him to see if he was real.
"What happened?" Kai asked, poking his cheek.
"Are you okay?" Nya grabbed his hand.
Then Lloyd was at his left side, the ever blind right side. He didn't know what face he made when he grabbed his shoulder from there, nothing to his right at all made sense.
"Guys, just give him some space." Cole navigated the others a few feet away, but with three of them, plus two others keeping him steady, it was too little space after they pushed away too.
He fidgeted with the hospital band still around his wrist, he really wouldn't have liked to be admitted, but with the sudden unexplainable blindness, he almost was. Luckily, he convinced them not to, sure they were just being overdramatic.
He wouldn't be telling Cole or Zane that, they'd turn into the others. Lloyd, Kai, and Nya poking and prodding him.
"Okay. What happened?" Lloyd said, more worry in his tone, firmer, he expected an answer.
But he just wanted to go to his room.
Kai put his hands in his pockets, the three were in their GIs now, but only half-way on, the armor not attached; they wouldn't be training while so worried. "The bathroom was ransacked, you hurt yourself or something?" He looked over him for visible injuries, but of course, there were none.
Just a stupid, ridiculous part of the injury he sustained.
Why couldn't he have woken up with that awful scar from the hook that dug into his skin? Or wake with the amount of blood that he had to clean up himself in the cell?
Just… why this?
Finally, he pressed his palm to his eye again, he bit his lips and his shoulders tensed. Cole and Zane stayed close.
Words tried to leave his mouth, but it failed, so he turned to Zane, on his left like Cole, who knew how threatened he felt by the emptiness on one side of his body, like half his body wasn't his. Betryal, that's what his body had done to him, or the part of himself that didn't fight back hard enough when Nadakhan did this to him in the first place.
"So, basically," he cleared his throat, "he woke up blind in one eye." he pointed to his own, and Jay leaned further into him, using his body as a blanket.
The Bounty was cold, still having the chill of an early morning rush to a hospital, despite the sun shining bright now. Maybe he would feel this cold for a while, he just felt… isolated, it was a strange, and dramatic feeling for something so insignificant.
A series of "huh" and half spoken "what"s rang through the entrance of the Bounty they barely managed to step into.
"He can't see… in his left eye. That is all for now." Zane further informed, also pointing to his own working eye, then Lloyd stepped to his left, testing if this was some prank. "He cannot see you." He remarked at Lloyd, who stepped back to his front.
Their reactions were quiet and concerned, obviously having no words for something so sudden and strange, but Nya's were silent in a different way. She must also have the achy feeling of what if meant, and didn't know what to say, scared to make more of it come true.
When a few seconds of silence passes by, Jay spoke himself, gripping the bracelet just a little harder for it.
"Can't see, they don't have an explanation, but…"
The others tilted their heads in curiosity, but the answer he thought he would spill quickly zipped away. He couldn't bombard anything more on them, or on himself for thinking back to it in such detail as he would need to even begin to get the point across!
"Appointment in a week." He continued listlessly and stepped from the huddle of Cole and Zane, finally standing up straight since what may very well have been when he leaned over the sink this morning, almost four hours ago. Looking back to the others, he cracked a smile, and they watched him quietly, taking a few steps forward too. "Hopefully it fixes itself up as easily as it did this."
Spinning around, he planned to forget about this when he got back to the cabin, pretend that it's a normal day, closing one eye in the hot, bright sun.
But walking right into a wall, his left side slamming sharply, was a good enough reminder to send him spiralling again.
Maybe his depth perception was already off, also the fact he couldn't see the corner of a wall he ran into without turning his whole head towards it. This would definitely be an inconvenience in battle.
"Hey, hey." Kai and Lloyd ran to him and got him sat up, then he pushed them away and stood up himself.
"Just my eye, I'm not weak." He adjusted his messed up pyjamas, which reminded him once again that he'd really like to just go to bed. But this time, he was worried he would have the nightmare that had been missing since the reversal.
"Okay, just…" Cole joined next, grabbing his arm softly to keep him up even though he could do this all fine on his own. He paused for a moment, looking at his name jotted down on the hospital band, and wished he could have been in there with Jay. "You want help to your room?"
Immediately, he shook his head.
Lack of vision left him vulnerable, open and oblivious to anything that happened there. But if he was going to adjust, he'd have to work up, and it started with this. So he held his hand to his left side and walked.