Chapter Text
It took them a couple of days to regroup enough to journey to Borg Tower. In their defense, the city was in shambles. The team was in shambles. A couple of days did not fix that, but it certainly gave them a brief rest before barreling headfirst into another emotion-fueled crisis.
They had decided to surprise Pixal. In hindsight, this was not wise. But Sora did not have the heart to call Dr. Borg again and no one else did either. As if a call would prompt a worsening of Pixal’s condition. There has been a change…she might not recover after all…
They did not know what to bring, so Cole bought a cake and Kai held it so that the earth ninja would not be tempted to eat it on the way. Zane found flowers. Lloyd did not think that he bought them because they were not wrapped in paper. They were stalks of lavender and lilac bound with a simple leather cord. He probably picked them himself, Lloyd thought. The nindroid had cradled the stems against his upper chest, the flowers trailing up to cover his face. Perhaps he was hoping they would hide him. The nindroid had barely spoken to the team since their reunion. It was as if his panic attack had stunned him into silence. No one was eager to break that silence. They had agreed in private to be gentle with him, to be supportive, but not intrusive. None of them had done something so egregious in their altered states. They, thankfully, could not imagine what their brother was going through. But they knew, and tried to tell him, that it was not his fault.
But no matter how many times they whispered, or even when Nya snapped at him, fed up by his refusal to join activities and care for his damaged body, he did not waver. He heard their words but did not listen to them.
It was almost impossible to get him to go. Kai had to corner him. Cole had to grab his shoulders and repeat, “She would want to see you,” while the nindroid shook his head like a broken metronome.
Lloyd had to promise that he could wait in the lobby while the rest of the ninja went up, just to see if she truly did want to see him. Lloyd regretted this the moment they stepped into the tower. He saw Zane tremble, slipping towards the back of their group and edging his way towards the waiting area.
“Zane,” Lloyd caught the nindroid by the arm.
He did not respond.
“Zane.” Lloyd saw a blue eye flash from behind the purple flowers.
“I don’t want to hurt her.”
“Oh, buddy. I don’t think you can…”
As soon as the words left Lloyd’s mouth, he knew he made a mistake.
“Please, Lloyd. I just…I do want to see her but I also don’t it if means she will be afraid or…”
“Just come up with us. You can wait in the elevator. Please. Just in case.”
Zane shuddered but he was able to give a single nod.
***
The first thing Pixal thought when they entered the room was that there was something deeply wrong with this picture. Wasn’t Zane supposed to be the one blinking on the bed while his concerned friends crowded around him? Wasn’t Pixal supposed to be the one shyly waiting at the crowd’s edge? Pixal was the shy ghost in this family, not Zane. She was the one on the outskirts, not the one in the middle. But this scenario was true, if wrong and Pixal blinked at the worried ninja clustered around her and tried to fit this into her perception of reality, half-wondering if this was a sort of bizarre dream.
She could not help but flinch when she first saw him. No matter how quickly she adjusted—realized that his eyes were blue instead of red and were soft with concern instead of sharp with hatred—he still noticed. He tried to hide how much that simple reaction had hurt him, but they had always had difficulty hiding things from each other. Pixal could read him like a book, and while, Pixal was a bit harder to read, Zane was akin to an expert at deciphering her emotions. He knew and she knew that he knew and it carved the hollowness in his eyes even deeper.
He softened—or tightened?—his grip on the flowers. Would she even want them when they reminded her of him? He did not want to know and wanted to guess even less. He cursed himself for this, for his paradoxical desires to both pull her into his arms and run far away as if he and Pixal were magnets and they were constantly reversing their polarities…
The ninja did not know what to say. Pixal blinked up at them. Her eyes, usually bright and wide, were dull, unfocused and half-lidded as if her eyelids were too heavy for her to lift all the way. She was wrapped in a thin blanket and lying on a table. The gathered shadows on the blanket allowed the ninja to glimpse the contours of her wounds—the deep crevasse in her chest. The wires poking out. But it shielded the raw details from their eyes. Lloyd noted that it was done hastily…a quick attempt at courtesy on Dr. Borg’s part, he guessed. The doctor in question was situated near Pixal’s head, vainly attempting to distract himself by sorting various tools on a nearby counter. The entire office was in disarray, things scattered everywhere, every monitor on and showing something. Some statistic or reading. Or else, the news. The building surveillance.
It was awkward, perhaps one of the more awkward meetings the ninja have experienced, which was notable as the ninja have had a lot of awkward meetings. The elephant in the room was simply too large. The gulf between the ninja and Pixal had never seemed this large…none of them besides Zane had seen her since they had experienced their corruption…and before that she had only managed to interact with them for a brief time…she had been trapped in a strange pod before the Merge and their world had changed so fast, and them with it, which left Pixal oddly trapped in the past…in both their minds and hers. But they said what they could.
Lloyd gave her a big hug upon seeing her and she grinned in surprise. She hadn’t seen him since he and the team had departed for the Never Realm and she was pleased that he was alive. The other ninja gave her updates, and told her how the reconstruction of the city and the monastery were going. They could not help but flinch at her blank smile when they told her of their celebrations…their reunions. They did not know what to say other than the truth but the truth had a sharp edge. It announced their gulf and deepened it. But Pixal was interested to hear and her smile did become more genuine as they continued. She was happy for them. The pain she felt at the unintentional exclusion of her from the festivities was lessened by the fact that her friends were happy and safe. She was especially excited for them that Wu and Lloyd had returned. The family was together again and she was excited to see their master again eventually.
Their meeting was brief. They quickly ran out of things to say and they had to return to the monastery and resume their tasks.
Pixal (and Cyrus) felt relief at this. She was unused to so much attention after what had happened and she needed rest, as Cyrus constantly reminded her. Cyrus was just glad that she had gotten to see her friends and that nothing particularly painful or awkward happened…and so the two said goodbye to the ninja and they started to the elevator.
Well, all but one. Zane had remained, still standing in the same place. His eyes still hollow and darting around the room.
“Zane?” Everyone else immediately pretended not to hear Pixal’s voice. The ninjas filed to the elevator and Dr. Borg dug through papers as Zane approached Pixal’s “bed,” still holding the flowers.
“It is good to see you…” Her voice was hoarse. She lifted a hand to her mouth to cover a weak cough. Her body shook with the action. Throughout the meeting, she had spoken as little as possible to prevent them from hearing how much speaking pained her, but it was unavoidable.
“You too,” he nodded, swallowing. The elevator had closed with their friends inside. Zane could not help but envision the jaws of a trap closing around him. “I…”
What to say? He felt frozen in fear. He forced his eyes to meet her face so they would not trail down to her chest and the shadows that mark the gouges he carved in it. Several thoughts flared through his mind, which he quickly killed.
I love you…I’m sorry…Please forgive me—don’t forgive me. You should hate me. I miss you. Come back. Please. Please. Go. Don’t go. I can’t—
“I miss you,” she said and his eyes, stunned, latched onto hers. While dull, her eyes still carried the hints of the emerald color he so loved. The deep, lush green that evoked forests and life.
“I…miss you too,” he tried valiantly to stop his voice from wavering. Her lips curled up in a smile and her eyes caught a glint of light in them.
“Come back,” she said, her voice in a strange space between a plea and a demand. Don’t be a stranger, was probably what she had meant by those words, but that human expression felt strange on her tongue and so she had settled for an out-of-place command instead. He settled the flowers into a glass jar that one of the ninja had propped on her bedside, his limbs still, his movements microscopic. He had not been this close to her since it happened and every fiber of his being was acutely aware of that fact. He dared not look at her fully until he stepped away from her bedside.
“I’m…here,” he said, despite being fully, painfully aware that he and Pixal both knew it was a lie.