Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Lightning can be a volatile and destructive force. It's caused by water particles in the clouds, swarming around each other, losing and gaining electrons when they collide. A storm builds as the charged ions do, until the tension is too much and then—

They crash.

Admittedly, reading about the Land of Lee through a stack of reports at three in the morning is a very different thing than experiencing it firsthand.

Jay was really bored at work one day and decided to open a random file and read, and then he got sucked down a rabbit hole of learning about a place that sounded more like some sort of weird cult movie than an actual realm. He knows far too much about this place after following that rabbit hole into the wee hours of the morning (and feeling like a zombie in his office the entire next day), but actually being here is something else entirely.

Hopefully they never have to see this orientation thing again. They probably won't, since the only way to get to this realm is through reassignment at the Administration and, how convenient, the guy in charge of that seems to have gone rogue and deleted everything. What a shame.

"You did tell us this place was weird," Nya says under her breath.

Water ninja. Not Nya. She doesn't need to have a name attached to her.

Wait, yes she does, they're undercover here. But she'd introduced herself as Maya earlier. So, still not Nya.

Anyway, whatever, Jay is going to shove that weird train of thought wayyyy to the side because finally the crowd of Lees are dispersing and one is coming up to them again, offering to lead them to a house that the four of them can share. Curse this place requiring a team mission. It would be so much easier if Jay could have just crept in here alone to find that kid's parents. Now he's got to babysit the ninja, one of whom is probably an actual child. Teenager, whatever, still a child.

At least the house is nice enough. It's got a big kitchen with an island, and it's fully stocked and Jay informs them that the food is not poisoned so that's good.

Lloyd The green one— he's wearing orange, damn it. Okay fine, Lloyd. Lloyd hesitates at the fridge door. "What do you mean by that?"

Jay shrugs. "What I said. It's safe to eat."

"Why wouldn't it be?" asks the kid whose name Jay actually genuinely can't remember. Something about fire.

"Never mind, don't worry about it." Jay waves it off and starts down the hall to see what else they have here. "The Administration ran a bunch of secret tests on this place a while back because, you know. It's weird. So yeah, nothing dangerous in the food. You're good." He thinks he's accidentally made them more wary than they already had been, but that's their problem and not his. He's down the hall now.

A living room across from the kitchen, a bathroom and a laundry room down the hall and, ah there's the stairs to the second level. This really is a suburban soccer mom house. One bedroom, two bedrooms, another bathroom, three bedrooms. Inside the last one he finds a whole ensuite with its own bathroom and closet and everything, but.

There's four of them. Four people and three rooms, that doesn't—

Oh, but he and Nya are supposed to be married, so...

Great. Cool, that's fine. He's totally fine with that.

This would have been so much easier as a solo mission.

Maybe he can convince the girls to share a room. They seem to get along just fine. It sure would make more sense than Jay and Nya sharing. Haha. Ha.

"Where did you disappear to?" Nya asks when he comes back downstairs, almost accusing but not quite.

"Just exploring," Jay says.

And none of them question him beyond that.

He finds it just a little weird how much they trust him. What if he was planning something against them? What if he was up there alone doing something nefarious to sabotage them, and they just believe him when he says he was exploring? He was just exploring and he doesn't have any reason to sabotage them (yet), but seriously they could stand to have a little more caution around a guy who's been shattered.

It's cute you think I had goodness to shatter.

He hadn't really meant that when he said it earlier. It was just a witty comeback, something to get on Nya's nerves. But he also didn't not mean it. Jay doesn't remember anything before the Merge, but he remembers everything since in crystal detail. Before Ras, he wouldn't say he was on any side or anything. Just kind of existed at the Administration, just did as he was told at work because what else was he supposed to do? When he escaped that place he could have gone any direction, he has elemental power and reflexes that tell him he used to be really good at fighting, he just has no idea who he used to fight, much less why. Ras found him first, and told him that his lightning could be even more precise and powerful if he used these wolf masks to perform shatterspin, well, here they are.

Jay still can't believe he trusted that guy just because he offered some false hope. Sure, Jay still wants to know who he was before the Merge, but he's been lied to by everyone who finds him. They offer to help him remember who he was, and then they just use him, a pawn in their own games. Jay was naïve before, but he isn't stupid. By now he doesn't even care who he used to be. He's not trusting anyone anymore. Especially not anyone who knows about his lightning.

Even if everything the ninja say about him seems to line up.

No. They're lying too, like everyone else. They're just being very elaborate about it. He's almost embarrassed for them.

It seems that this is an ingredients house, which Jay is actually kind of okay with because he doesn't exactly get a solid meal plan now that he's on his own again. But also that currently means that there isn't anything to just grab and eat. He doesn't trust fire girl around any of the appliances and especially not the stove, and Lloyd and Nya are taking forever debating what they want to make. Jay is hungry.

He pushes past his indecisive roommates, to the pantry, mentally checking boxes as he scans what's inside. Perfect. He grabs what they'll need, sets them on the counter, heads to the fridge and does the same.

Bagels. Tomato sauce. Cheese. "Pizza," he says in explanation when fire girl looks utterly confused. "Someone turn the oven on. You all can find whatever toppings you want if we have 'em."

There's quiet in the kitchen behind him, but he's busy and ignores them. They're confused, he can tell. But they're smart ninja, right? They can figure it out. He's not going to hold their hands here.

Eventually there's a click as someone turns the oven on, and the other three move around, first watching him, then putting their own food together.

"Where did you learn to make this?" Lloyd asks.

Jay shrugs. "No clue. Feel free to take a wild guess since you claim to know me better than I know myself." It comes out bitter and he doesn't care. Why should he be nice to them?

No one else talks to him through dinner, probably in part because Jay took his tiny pizzas and sat as far away from them as possible. There's no surveillance or anything going on in town, creepy as it is, so he can act however he wants when there's no one but them. And he doesn't want to act friendly with the ninja. Didn't in the arena, didn't in the monastery, doesn't now. They helped him when he was injured and he thinks he should feel grateful, but he just doesn't, and can't bring himself to try.

After using shatterspin the first time, Jay had felt the change immediately. It felt like something inside him had broken, and before he could try to piece together what it was, it healed. Sort of. It healed in the sense that an inky black something had molded itself into all the tiny cracks in his heart, fusing itself into the empty spaces and seeping into his veins to try and make him whole again. It feels like darkness, like power, it feels like a dragon protecting its hoard and hissing at anyone who tries to get too close. It got worse after he used it in the tournament, grew claws that it sinks into his heart whenever he thinks he should feel something. When Nya said she loves him, the monster dug deeper, wrapped itself tighter. She's lying. If she loved him she would have found him before Ras did. Before the Administration did.

The mechanical sun sets, and on the opposite side of the bunker a matching crescent moon rises. The lights change color and dim to mimic a sunset. It would be impressive if it wasn't a lie.

No one else seems to question the number of bedrooms. Jay watches from the hall as each of them claims one for themselves. Hello? He just solved their dinner problem and everything, and they're just going to leave him out here?

Then Nya pokes her head back out the door of the biggest room, the one that was clearly meant for the two of them. "Jay? You coming or what?"

Does she seriously expect him to—?

Apparently she can see the question all over his face. She rolls her eyes. "What did you expect? We told them we're married. Come on, I don't bite."

"I'll sleep on the couch." Divorced dad kind of arrangement but whatever. He's not sharing a bed with her, or any of them. The monastery was tolerable because they gave him his own room to stay in while his leg healed, but this... No. No thank you.

"Jay—"

Nope, he's already walking away. "Good night."

As bland and sterile as this house is, he does think it's better than the monastery, in a way. It's quieter, for one.

Jay pulls the cushions off the couch, hoping he'll find... Nope. What kind of suburban dream home doesn't have a hide-a-bed? He sighs and puts it back together again, then starts to dig for some quilts or something.

And then there was the room they gave him in the monastery. Yes he should feel grateful that he had one, and that he didn't have to share. But it was blue, and had painted decorations shaped like lightning bolts that were invisible during the day but glowed on the walls and the ceiling at night, and it was full of things that belong to someone else, a closet full of clothes and figurines on the shelves and a gaming computer on the desk. They said it was his, and just like everything else, he didn't recognize any of it. Sure they're things that he likes, the posters on the walls and the fairy lights strung over the tops of the shelves, but they're not his. And it's a little creepy that it feels like it could belong to him, but it doesn't.

Okay, bed is set up. Sort of. It's a couple throw pillows and the softest quilt he could find, but he'll make do. Still better than the makeshift camping setups he had while hunting Ras. Better than sharing with a person he doesn't know beyond the fact that she kind of kicked his ass in a tournament match.

Better than a room that felt haunted by whoever lived there before. By their Jay. Whoever he was, the memory of him there is still too strong, it was hard to sleep, always feeling like there was another presence in the room with him. Compared to that, the couch might feel like sleeping on a cloud.

Hm. He's still in his borrowed clothes from lost and found. Lee probably gave them more, it's not like anyone shows up here with luggage or anything and the house is already plenty stocked with other stuff. But if that's the case, he'd have to go into Nya's room to find anything and he doesn't feel like doing that. So Jay just sucks it up and flops onto the couch anyway. He's a little careless and winces when he lands a little too harshly, his leg has been healed for a while now but it's still kind of touchy when he's not careful with it. Thankfully the twinge of pain doesn't last long, and he settles in a little more gently.

No one has come down after him. Good. Not that he expected them to. Not that he wanted them to. The little monster fused into his heart would have tried to scare them back upstairs anyway.

Part of Jay thinks he must dream wherever his memories are kept, locked away somewhere he can't reach when he's awake. He often wakes up grasping at something mentally, but it always slips away, right as he's reaching out to grab it. Just clouds dissolving whenever he tries to touch them.

He wakes up before anyone else does, probably something to do with falling asleep in a button-up and suspenders— why didn't he take those off? No wonder he's sore. They looked nice though. Suspenders are sexy. But it's definitely time for a change of clothes once the others are awake.

Lloyd comes down pretty soon after, though he does look a little dead on his feet. His hair is a mess and he's still in baggy pajamas. "Morning," he grumbles on his way to the kitchen.

A few minutes later, after Jay has had time to tidy up his makeshift bed and turn it back into a functional couch, Lloyd backpedals into the living room.

"Wait. Were you...?"

"Was I what?"

"Did you sleep down here last night?"

Jay shrugs, and decides that's all the answer he'll give.

He should be nicer to them. But he can't bring himself to.

Lloyd looks like he wants to ask more, but he gives up and heads back into the kitchen.

Eventually the girls wake up too, probably drawn downstairs by the smell of toaster waffles. Jay sneaks past them, upstairs into the master bedroom where he hopes he can find a change of clothes. The extended camping trip is over, his leg is healed, he is taking a damn shower. He missed running water. Maybe this place isn't all that bad after all.

He figures he should stay on brand with the nobility thing he made up on the spot yesterday, buuut that sounds like a lot of effort that he can worry about later, if they end up going anywhere. For now he grabs the first t-shirt he finds, and comfier pants than the ones he had yesterday. That's much better.

Now for his hair. It's gotten... so long. Mostly he just hasn't had a chance to cut it, being always on the go and also kind of an outlaw and all, and cutting it himself sounds like more trouble than it's worth. Easier to just tie it back and move on with his life. But he kind of likes his hair like this now and the pros are that it's pretty low maintenance. It's grown on him, you could say. Hah.

The cons, however: it takes for-fucking-ever to dry. Not a problem when he's out on his own in the Wyldness or wherever for weeks at a time, but here that might end up getting annoying. Jay gives up on waiting when it's still a little damp because those toaster waffles are starting to sound very enticing. This is good enough.

He's starting to pull it back, holding the tie in his mouth, when he hears the bedroom door creak open.

"Jay?"

That's Nya's voice. She wanders toward the bathroom.

"Are you up here? Did you want— Oh, sorry!"

She quickly backs away when she sees him inside, even though he's very much clothed and she's not walking in on anything.

Jay takes the hair tie out of his mouth. "It's fine."

What happened to not being nice to her?

Nya peeks inside again, checking if the coast is clear perhaps. They make eye contact in the mirror, and then she opens the door. Is she blushing? He is literally fully clothed. "There's breakfast, if you want."

"I know," Jay says. He twists the tie into his hair, and notices that Nya is watching every detail. Oh is that what's got her flustered? Okay, maybe he won't cut it then. Not that he was considering it, and also not that he cares what she thinks of him, but— "I'm almost done, then you can have your room back."

"Did you actually sleep on the couch last night?"

There's some flyaways but it's fine. Jay turns back toward Nya. "Where did you think I slept?"

"I didn't... I didn't really think about it. I was hoping you—"

"Of course you didn't."

That's enough of this conversation. Jay starts to leave, pushes past Nya in the doorway.

"Jay—"

"It's fine, okay? I'll sleep wherever I want. That's my choice, not yours. Outside this house we're married, but in here when no one is watching..." He stops but doesn't turn back to look at her. Unbidden memories echo where the old ones probably used to reside.

I will always hate you.

Jay shakes his head to push it away. It's too early for this. "I'm not going to pretend to be someone I'm not, just to make you happy."

(He forgot as soon as he woke up, but he dreamed about a roller coaster and a scratch on his hand from a fossilized snake. And the girl he's currently trying to hate, telling him he doesn't have to pretend to be someone he's not, just to make her happy.)

They talk outside after breakfast. The house has a nice little porch area and plenty of other people are out today, and Jay already knows that if they want information, they need to be friendly with the neighbors down here.

Lloyd says pretty much what Jay is thinking. The plan is to try to work themselves into the community, ask about the kid's parents without drawing suspicion. Don't mess up Lee's perfect little world because that could domino real fast.

This may take a while.

Which means Jay will be sleeping on the couch for a while. Yippee.

Apparently Lloyd and Wyldfyre want to start right away, and they both run off to find activities to do. Jay, for one, is going to enjoy some down time while he has it. And maybe more free food.

Except, he realizes once he's back inside, there is no TV down here, Lee wouldn't want anyone to know that the outside world is still functioning out there so that makes sense. But Jay also realizes he left his video games at the monastery (his portable console looks almost identical to all of the other Jay's stuff, it's easy to lose), and of course there's no wifi or cell signal down here (read: TV) so he can't even access mobile games because for some reason you need wifi to smash virtual candy. Ugh.

Nya sits next to him on the couch. She's holding the tablet that had been sitting on their table outside, kind of a directory to all the distractions Lee provides for people down here.

"Why does everything sound like an activity at a retirement home?" she asks out loud.

Jay glances up at her from where he's slumped down in bored defeat, still upset about the wifi thing. He doesn't say anything.

"Like, needlepoint? Book club? Dancing?" Nya continues. She wants to talk to him, and she's not being subtle about it. Probably not even trying to.

Okay, he'll bite. "Dancing doesn't strike me as an old people thing."

"I'm pretty sure it's not like the games at the arcade, Jay," she says with a little smile. Yeah, she definitely just wanted to talk to him.

"You don't know." (She's probably right.)

Nya looks down at him. "We could find out."

"Nuh-uh. Nice try, Mrs. McCoolguy, but that's not happening."

"It's Countess, actually," Nya says, mocking him for yesterday.

"Ha, ha." Jay sits up. "Look, I know we're only fake married because you think we used to be dating and your green ninja guy is encouraging it—"

"We weren't just dating, we—"

"Doesn't matter. I don't care, and I don't want to do overly romantic stuff, okay? If it was up to me, we wouldn't even be fake married in the first place."

Nya stares him down. It's obvious she doesn't like a word he's saying and she wants to put up some kind of fight about it. For a master of water, she's as fiery as her brother. "What cover would you have chosen, then?"

Honestly, Jay has no idea what he would have suggested. He was hoping the ninja would make up a backstory for him, because he didn't want to decide how he was supposed to be attached to any of them, so he got what he wanted in that regard. There aren't any good options, he just thinks that being married to Nya would have been his last choice, if it had been on his radar at all. He's not exactly her biggest fan after all the weirdness at the tournament.

"I don't know, green guy and I could have been brothers or something."

"Lloyd."

"Whatever, don't care."

Nya huffs and gets up, wanders back to the kitchen to set the tablet down on the table. "Well, Arin's parents are named Barry and Jenny. I hope you care enough to remember their names at least."

That stings a little. Jay opens his mouth to counter, because of course he knows their names. He remembers everything since the Merge, just not before. How else would he have known where he sent them, or who the ninja were even talking about when they said Arin's parents? But Nya is already walking away.

"Okay, bye."

She waves halfheartedly on her way to the door.

Jay still has no video games and no wifi.

("This place is so weird. Like, unnervingly weird." Lloyd sighs and sits next to Nya on the steps of the front porch. "I can't tell if they think Lee is their friend or if they think he's some kind of deity."

Nya hums, non-committal. She's got other stuff on her mind.

"You okay?"

"Fine."

She's not fine. Maybe she shouldn't have come. Her mind keeps wandering and she can't stay focused on the actual objective here. She wants to help him but sometimes even being near him is so—

"Forget him, Nya. Why don't you and I go do something fun? I need a break from book club anyway."

"Something fun?"

Lloyd gets up and holds out his hand to her. "Like when I was little and it was just you and me. One of the other caverns has an amusement park."

Okay, that does sound like a good distraction. Especially now that Lloyd is tall enough for roller coasters. Sources, how long has it been since she babysat him while the other boys were hunting snakes? Feels like lifetimes ago. They're all so different now.

Forget him.

Nya smiles and takes Lloyd's hand. "Okay, let's go.")

The house felt too small last night. Now that it's empty it feels massive.

Feels like the ghost followed him here from the monastery.

Whatever. Jay can keep himself busy. He's used to being alone, prefers it, even. It's nice to have the house to himself.

By the time the other three come back from wherever they've been, Jay has already mapped out an escape plan for once they find their targets, has made more tiny pizzas because that was actually pretty nice yesterday, and has taken a power nap. On Nya's bed that should also be his bed. He didn't want to sleep on the couch, okay? The bed is way more comfortable. And it smells nice.

"Have you even done anything today?"

"Yes," Jay says defensively. "I figured out how to get out of here once we're ready."

"You didn't feel like writing it down or anything?" Lloyd asks.

Jay shrugs. "You don't believe me just because it doesn't look like a detective movie in here? I don't need to write it down if I can remember." And, again, he can remember everything after the Merge in unsettling detail.

So what exactly happened to make him forget everything before?

That's not something anyone needs to worry about right now.

Right now he leads them to the window and tells them the plan. The elevator they came in is the only way in or out of the bunkers. For "safety," Lee insists. Don't want that toxic air getting in, right? Three ninja and a mercenary can just climb their way back up the shaft with no problem, but a normal average middle-aged couple who have been down here for years probably can't. Definitely can't.

It's pretty clear as Jay is explaining, the others hadn't even started thinking about this. He mentally pats himself on the back and continues. Lee makes trades with people outside, it's how they have literally anything down here. Food, water, all their supplies, everything. The deliveries come twice a week on a pretty solid schedule, he remembers from watching hours of surveillance at the Administration. If they time it right, they can sneak onto the roof of that utility elevator, and hitch a ride back out without waking up a hornets' nest. Easy peasy.

"Not a lot of room for error, then," Lloyd says.

"Is there ever?"

"Guess not."

"Didn't think so," Jay says. "No one mess up, and we'll be fine."

Nya huffs. "Would it kill you to be a little nicer?"

"Probably."

Both girls look pissed at him now. For some reason that's satisfying, especially because fire girl can't actually blast him through the wall like she's threatening to under her breath.

Jay isn't cooking for them again. He's already eaten, so he takes his leave and lets them figure it out for themselves tonight.

"You get to clean then!" fire girl says as he walks away.

"Sure, whatever."

Apparently she meant that as a promise, not a threat. When they're done and heading back up to their rooms, Jay faces a mountain of dishes, most of which he's sure weren't even used. And like, he doesn't care that she hates him, but damn. Isn't she supposed to be a good guy?

Not for the first (and likely also not the last) time does Jay wish he'd done this solo. Or maybe just brought along one of the other ninja. Lloyd isn't so bad if you ignore his self-sacrificial hero complex. Jay's barely spent any time with Cole or Kai, but they seem okay. Cole has gone up the list of okay-ness since he immediately backed off when Jay pushed him away that first night at the monastery and hasn't really talked to him since. Zane is also pretty okay, but that's because he's too sappy in love with his samurai robot girlfriend to be much of a bother to anyone else, and also the two of them went off on a honeymoon or whatever, so neither of them would have been an option for this mission anyway.

He thinks he could have been friends with them in another lifetime. The idea of a ninja android is kind of ridiculously cool, but he won't say that out loud.

Suddenly the water flowing out of the faucet develops a mind of its own, twirling through the air and landing gracefully in a bowl. Jay tries not to let his amazement show. He's seen her manipulate water, this is nothing new. Even if it looks cool. It's over-the-top and annoying, is what it is.

As expected, Nya appears next to him. "Need help?"

"No."

"Too bad."

Jay sighs. Whatever.

At least she doesn't try to be all chatty again like she was this morning. It's not that Jay doesn't like talking, he does and he kind of hates that he does, because if he starts then sometimes he can't stop and then he's accidentally saying too much and suddenly half the day is gone before you know it and— The point is. If he talks he might say things he regrets. He might accidentally be vulnerable around her and he can't afford that. What if he says something she can use against him?

So he's okay with not talking. Anyway he's probably as annoying as Agent Etha when he gets going about something he likes.

He is okay with not talking.

He is.

"Do you wear perfume or something?"

Jay wants to slam his face into the counter. Did he really just ask that?

He refuses to look at Nya but he can hear how confused she is. "Do I what?"

Great, now he has to explain himself. And he is not going to admit he took a nap in her bed, so, "You're standing very close." Not exactly a lie. But also Jay thinks he's just making himself look more and more ridiculous by the second.

Nya takes a small step away from him. "I'm actually super allergic to perfume. So, no."

Huh. Well now Jay is also confused.

"It's probably just dish soap," Nya says, picking up the bottle and squeezing it just enough to send some bubbles into the air. She's smiling at him with some genuine joy and it looks very pretty on her.

Aesthetically, of course. Just in general. She has a nice face. This means absolutely nothing. Girls are pretty, Jay is bisexual, what's new.

Okay, enough of that!

Jay swats the bubbles away and goes back to the mountain of dishes he's been chipping away at. "Sure, that's probably it." That's not it, but he doesn't want to talk about it anymore. The monster around his heart is digging its claws in again, warning him.

Eventually, what feels like hours later even with Nya's help, the sink is empty and the dishwasher is running, and the sun has long set outside. Jay follows Nya upstairs to her room and waves her off when she starts to say something about it.

"I'm not sleeping here, just grabbing pajamas."

"You can stay if you want."

"I don't want. Thanks."

He takes what he needs and leaves before she can say anything else.

Yes the bed is more comfortable. No he's not sharing it with someone else. The end.

So, just like last night, just like he will for the foreseeable future, Jay drags the quilts back out. He changes in the laundry room, and he curls up on the couch and he's perfectly fine sleeping here.

(Nya sneaks down, after she's given him time to change his mind. But he doesn't come back so she follows him.

Forget him, Lloyd had said. How is she supposed to forget? He was everything.

And what happens when they do what they came here to do? When they leave this place and they try to track down Arin and Sora? Will he leave? Just go back to being a wandering mercenary that they may never see again?

Jay is already asleep on the couch. Seeing him there reminds her of something, and Nya immediately pushes it away and goes back up to her room before it can suffocate her.

Unfortunately, Nya does remember things that happened before the Merge. And she won't forget in the morning when they resurface in her dreams. When she sees a room, dark blue through the water steadily rising outside, when she kneels next to the sofa and whispers a goodbye that he can't even hear because he can barely breathe, when the memory of seawater rushing into her lungs is enough to wake her and leave her too afraid to go back to sleep.

He may not remember, but at least he's alive, Nya reminds herself. He's alive.)

Their first few days in the bunker don't deviate much. Life down here is unsurprisingly kind of monotonous, which is almost welcome after life on the road. And if they get bored, there's a few other caverns they can visit. Apparently Wyldfyre has already done some damage on one of the ice cream hotels.

"Is there just like, a lot of ice cream in there?" Jay asks out loud at one point. "Or is it a Hansel and Gretel sort of thing?"

Nya just laughs. "Not sure if I want to find out. But if there is an evil witch involved, I'm sure Wyldfyre knows how to handle herself."

"Hopefully handling herself doesn't also mean blowing our cover."

Jay also does agree that they need to do some couple-y activities, being fake married and all. Nya takes the news extremely well as expected, and she already seemed to have a list of things she wanted to do together.

"For the sake of the mission, of course. This will help us find Arin's parents."

"Right."

She sounded like she was trying to convince both of them. Jay let it slide just because he didn't feel like putting a damper on her excitement.

Not that he cares about her happiness or anything. He just thinks she's looked grumpy with him since she found out who he was and it's nice to see her smile every once in a while. That's all.

Unfortunately, even with all their combined effort, no one is any closer to locating the kid's parents. These bunkers aren't endless, why is it impossible to find two people?

Wyldfyre sprawls out in the grass in the back yard. She's going to get stains on her sweater. "This is taking foreverrrrrrr."

"We're undercover. Did you think we would find them on day one?" Jay says. He doesn't bother glancing at her. She's just throwing a tantrum and he's too busy scanning through Nya's list of couple stuff. What even is needlepoint? Sounds like an old lady thing. He crosses it off. Nya can do that on her own if she wants.

"I dunno. That would've been nice, though."

Jay keeps ignoring her. He crosses dancing off the list, again. Where did Lloyd and Nya go anyway? He's not worried or anything, they've just been gone a while.

"I miss Roby."

Not this again, she's just being annoying on purpose. Jay looks up. "Go complain about it to Nya then. I'm sure she'd love to talk about missing her boyfriend too." That felt sufficiently mean spirited. The scales feel balanced again.

Wyldfyre lifts her head to glare at him. "I don't know what she ever saw in an asshole like you."

"Me neither."

She ignores him, which is probably deserved. "You know, with the way she always talks about you, I thought you were supposed to be some kind of hero like them. Kai said nice stuff about you too. Like, he said jokey stuff about how he's better than you and all, but he does that to all his other friends so I thought you would be more like them."

Somehow this is worse than her whining about her boyfriend. He's had to explain this like a million times already, it's getting old. "I have news for you, fire girl. That person they talk about isn't me."

"They say it's you."

"They're wrong."

The back door slides open, and Jay breathes a sigh of relief. He wishes they would stop bringing this up. It's bad enough they think he's a completely different person, but it's worse that they don't believe him when he tries to say they're wrong. If they would just listen—

"We have takeout!" Lloyd announces. Nya is right behind him.

Oh, right. That's where they said they were. Again, not that he was worried or anything.

The monster digs into his heart in warning, crackles of electricity where it's entwined with him. It's been getting really defensive lately, hasn't it?

"Jay, are you sure you still want to sleep down here?"

"I'm sure."

"You don't—"

"Good night."

Another week goes by with almost the same monotony.

Lloyd seems to have found himself stuck in the book club, and he hosts his own separate "meetings" at home every night because he needs to vent about how bored he is, and it sounds like he's trying to drag the rest of them down with him.

"You don't have to go," Nya reminds him.

"I haven't even gotten a chance to ask about Barry and Jenny yet," he says. It's a feeble excuse. Maybe after saving the world so many times, the green ninja is a little happy to be bored.

Wyldfyre has similar complaints, but in the opposite direction because she can't find one thing to attach herself to. Jay still wonders why they even brought her. She bounces between suburban backyard parties so often, he's worried she'll give them away. But they're safe so far, and the first time he asked out loud, Nya gave him a glare that was a silent threat to break his nose next time he asks, so he keeps the question to himself now.

And then, Nya. Sometimes she goes off on her own. Apparently she enjoys old lady things, which Jay totally doesn't find endearing or anything. She told him once that she had already started to pick up quilting from the mom of an old friend, so it was easy to pick back up again. The friend hasn't been around for a while but she still visits their mom whenever she can. He knows she's talking about her Jay. Sometimes Nya will join Wyldfyre or Lloyd walking around their part of the bunker, or exploring whatever the fuck an ice cream hotel is.

And, sometimes, yes. She and Jay do things together. For appearances. They're supposed to be married. They have that list that Nya made, and they're slowly working their way through it. Every time Jay tries to think of something to do with her to try and even things out, he comes up blank because he does not want to do anything with her. But he does his best to not be a complete jerk when they are outside the house together, for appearances.

A very curious older lady is staring at his hand. They're out at an ice cream social (Why does this place have so much ice cream?) and Jay is basically just following Nya around like a lost duckling because he doesn't really want to talk to anyone and now there's an old lady staring at Jay's left hand. Oh. Oh, the pieces just clicked together.

He takes a deep breath and does his best to seem like he wants to be here. "Hi."

"Oh, hello," she says like she didn't notice he has a whole human body attached to his hand. "Sorry, I couldn't help but notice—"

Interrupting is rude but Jay doesn't care because he doesn't want to hear the whole question. He pulls his hand away before she can reach for him, and stares at his empty finger like he's sad about it. "Oh. Yeah, that."

"You and Maya are married, aren't you?"

They're supposed to be. Jay nods. "We are, but... You know, the Merge happened so suddenly. We must not have been wearing our rings when it happened, and now..." He pretends to get choked up. Someone get him an award, he's doing great over here. "They're gone."

"That's such a shame," the lady says, with such genuine sadness that it sounds like she may actually shed a tear about it. Maybe Jay is too good.

Nya, who is still standing right next to him but was talking to someone else, realizes what's going on. She finishes whatever conversation she was having, then jumps into theirs. "It is," she says, taking Jay's hand in hers. "But we still have each other, that's all that matters to me."

He's tempted to pull away, but for now he lets her. It would look bad if he got skittish around his wife. And she's gentle, not holding him too tight or anything, not forcing him to stand any closer than they already were. He breathes. It's fine.

"How beautiful," the old lady is saying as Jay stares at their hands. Nya's nails are painted blue, but it's chipping away and her nails are short. She probably uses her hands a lot, being a ninja. "Oh, you know, there's a metalworking group that meets on Tuesdays. You could make new ones!"

Jay looks up. "That... sounds like a great idea." Be nice, Jay. Be nice.

The old lady says more before walking away, but Jay doesn't hear her. He's too busy smiling and hoping it doesn't look fake.

"So?" Nya asks on their way home. No longer holding hands, by the way. They don't need to pretend when it's just them.

"What?"

"Are you gonna go?"

"Go where?"

She groans. "Metalworking, Jay. I bet you'd be really good at it."

He does take note that she's not saying he used to be really good at it. But he knows it's what she's implying. "Of course I am. And you guys stole my design for the glider."

"Oh. Right, forgot about that. Technically that was Sora. And they were super helpful for fighting Thunderfang, so... thank you?"

"Whatever," Jay says. They keep walking for a bit, and he glances down at his hand. It would give him something to do, to keep the ghosts away. And if it's for their cover... "I'll go."

"You will? Aw, you're so sweet." Nya moves like she's about to hug him. But she must see him flinch, and she stops. No one nearby would have noticed anything at all, they both have good reflexes. Jay sort of feels bad, he didn't do it on purpose, he just really really hates the idea of physical contact. But then he sees Nya reach for his hand again, slower, gentle, ready to back off if he shies away again. He doesn't move toward her, but he doesn't move away either. She curls her pinky around his, and doesn't push any further than that. "Thank you," she says.

Jay isn't really sure what she's thanking him for, because it feels like more than just the fake rings. He's not sure he wants to know. So he doesn't ask.

(He will forget this in the morning:

"Nya, you make me so happy every day, when we're not together I miss you so much that it feels like part of me is missing—"

"NOW you're asking?"

"We seriously need to talk about your sense of timing, Jay."

"There may not be another time."

Nya remembers, though. She keeps her half of the medallion on a thin chain, around her neck and tucked away under her gi where it's safe. She's glad she didn't lose it in the Merge, but she would trade it in a heartbeat if it meant not losing Jay.)

Nya practically slams the tablet down on the table. Jay picks up his coffee so it doesn't fall over, and yes he realizes how painfully domestic that sounds. He's still in pajamas and everything. May as well be reading the morning paper. This place is starting to get to him.

"Why do you keep crossing dancing off the list?"

"Why do you keep putting it back on?

Those gears are whirring as Nya tries to justify it. She wants it so bad but she knows she's doing it for her own selfish reasons and she just can't come up with an actual mission-relevant reason. Too bad, so sad. Jay is already making rings, can't she just take a win where she gets it?

He gives her a smug grin when she can't come up with anything. "Don't add it, and I won't cross it off. I know what you're doing and it's not gonna happen."

"You don't want to even try?"

"Try what, water ninja?" He puts on a mocking tone and puts his hand on hers. "Holding hands? Standing close enough to touch? Do you think being intimate will magically bring back your old boyfriend?"

"That's not what I was—"

"Yes it is." Jay pulls away from her and sets his cup down. They keep saying this. Why aren't you more like him, why don't you remember, why don't you wake up one day and be our Jay? Why can't you just be this other version of yourself that we invented to control you just like Ras and the Administration did?

"Why are you being like this suddenly?"

Jay scoffs. "I'm not acting any different than usual. When we're around other people I'm acting so that we can keep a low profile, you should try it sometime instead of convincing yourself I actually have feelings for you."

Quiet for a moment. She really should be used to him saying things like this by now. "I'm not trying to make you do anything you don't want," Nya says eventually. "But I do think it's a potential option for finding Arin's parents."

That's a blatant lie if Jay ever heard one. "And...?"

She glares at him. But he doesn't back down, and after a moment she gives up and looks away. "Okay. And maybe I thought it would... I don't know. I thought maybe it might... help. Maybe you would remember something. Dancing used to be our thing."

Sounds cringe. Jay will admit he likes dancing, but like Nya said the other day, this isn't exactly DDR at the arcade. And partner dancing requires a whole lot of physical contact that he would rather stay far, far away from.

The monster protecting his heart digs its claws in, reminds him of the other night when he left himself unguarded. "You think you can fix me," Jay says.

"That's not what I said."

"It's what you meant." He gets up and takes his mug with him. "I'm not going dancing with you."

Tuesday. Jay begrudgingly makes his way to the metalworking thing, fighting the monster burning in his heart the entire time. He promised he would at least try. He's not being vulnerable with her, this is for their cover. It's fine. Anyway, building a tiny armor mech and jet pack is completely different from tiny stuff like jewelry. Jay isn't artsy, he's an engineer, a mechanic.

So naturally making two little rings is a piece of cake for him. Somehow.

The guy who's supposed to be their instructor, some dude with gray hair and Imperian markings, passes by as Jay is staring at the rings on his table. They're still cooling off after soldering, but he had put them together with hardly any effort at all. To be fair, this is definitely not the only time that muscle memory has kicked in on something he swears he's never done before. His conscious memory only goes back a handful of years, it takes longer than that to learn how to build a jetpack, let alone come up with his own design and all the bells and whistles. But he did it in a matter of weeks, improvising the whole way. Did it explode in his face once? Yes. But only once. And as much as he hates to remember it, yeah the Administration was like that too. It wasn't even second nature to add in formulas to every stupid spreadsheet so he could actually find data again later, that was fully first nature, easy as breathing.

And, apparently, so is making jewelry.

"May I see?"

Jay shrugs, still kind of in awe at himself. And also mentally preparing for Nya to have an excuse at the ready when he shows them to her. Of course you're good at this, Jay, you're a ninja and she told you so, and it's because she knows you and loves you or whatever. Stupid.

The man takes them gingerly, holds them in his palm. "This is for you and your wife, you said?"

"We lost our wedding rings in the Merge," Jay says, with like three percent of the enthusiasm he had the first time he told this story. They've been the talk of the town since the ice cream thing, everyone jumping in to hear about such a touching love story. Gross.

"What do the shapes represent?"

Shapes? Jay looks at them again. He was winging it here, he wasn't consciously making them into something. Was he?

Okay, maybe he is a little artsy. They're a dark, stony metal with almost iridescent shimmer. It was labeled as deepstone. Jay doesn't know why he picked that one, so don't ask. Nya's has a swooping form around the setting for the stone, it looks like a crashing wave.

"She reminds me of the ocean," Jay says without thinking. He's not sure if he means it or not. If he does, it's not in a romantic way. Her element is water, of course she reminds him of the ocean. She's splashed him in the face more than a few times.

The man nods and sets them down again. "I know the perfect gemstone, then."

It's Saturday. Not that it matters, since this whole thing has felt simultaneously like constant work and pressure but also like one giant vacation. But, despite the lack of a 40-hour white collar work week, people down here still tend to hold their bigger get-togethers on the weekends. Which means Wyldfyre has taken over the stove to prepare for another day of backyard hopping (Jay still doesn't fully trust her in the kitchen so he stays well away) and Lloyd is probably going to sleep all day in his room.

("How old even is he?" Jay asks Nya one time. "Sometimes it feels like he's older than us, and then sometimes I swear he's like seventeen and going through a growth spurt."

Nya shakes her head. "That is a question with a very long and complicated answer."

"You know what? I just remembered I don't care.")

When Jay comes back downstairs from getting dressed, he finds Nya curled up with a book on the couch. Now seems like an appropriate time. Just the two of them but decidedly not romantic.

Jay sits next to her, to make it less romantic if that's at all possible. He digs into his pocket. "Oh, I finished these," he says, the picture of nonchalant.

"Finished what?" She closes her book and looks up just in time for Jay to take her hand and plop the wave ring into it as unceremoniously as he possibly can. "Oh. Oh, wait, you actually made these?"

"I told you I would."

"I didn't think you actually— Jay, this is beautiful."

Jay flicks a flyaway over his shoulder. "Well, yeah. I wasn't gonna half-ass it." He readies himself for another I told you so moment.

But it doesn't happen.

Instead, Nya stares at him for a moment in which he refuses to make eye contact with her because he knows she's going through something over there, then she slips the ring onto her finger and stares at that instead. "Thank you."

The monster tries to hiss and burn, but Jay ignores it. "You're welcome."

She seems to catch the shift, the way he actually responded without just blowing her off. She's looking at him again but differently, like she wants to ask if he was being nice to her.

Except Jay doesn't want that. He wants to change the subject now.

He clears his throat. "So, I had a thought. We've been working hard on finding our missing people, and I know you enjoy the old lady stuff but I think we need a break from all the retiree activities. I was thinking maybe we could take the day off, maybe explore one of the other caverns, see some actual stuff for people our own age."

"Jay. Are you... asking me on a date?"

"If you want to take it that way, sure. As, you know, a married couple or whatever."

He dares to look at her. She's so genuine when she smiles like this. She's got a dimple on one side. Had he noticed that before? Did he care enough to notice? Was she just not smiling like this before?

"Sure. I'd love to."

"Cool."

"And I know where I want to go."

Oh. Okay, that's unexpected. But Jay actually didn't really have any ideas, he's surprised he even made it this far, so he's happy to let her decide. "Okay. Where to?"

Nya sets her book aside, gets up and takes Jay's hands to pull him up as well. "How do you feel about roller coasters?"

When Jay mentioned doing something for people their own age, he must confess he has no idea how old he is. Definitely within a couple years of Nya. Maybe late twenties? Early thirties? That feels like a solid guess.

Point being, a lot of people in this part of the bunker are younger than them. Like, Wyldfyre's age. So this wasn't quite what he meant, but maybe it's just a little jarring after spending the past few weeks with people twice their age.

He must also confess, he has never been on a roller coaster. At least not that he remembers. Though something about the way Nya is acting tells him that her Jay loved roller coasters. They're barely past the gates when she takes his hand and practically drags him to one of the biggest ones, with a track that has some pretty steep drops and a big loop in the middle. Jay's hands are not shaking, in case anyone was wondering. That thing doesn't look intimidating at all. Really, how different can this be from flying his jetpack glider?

"Our first date was at an amusement park," Nya says. There's something different about the way she says our. Like she's not referring to him, Jay right now in this moment. She's talking about her boyfriend, someone else entirely. Jay isn't sure how he feels about it. Even when they're not trying to convince him he's their Jay, he still can't get out from under that guy's shadow. "But it got kind of interrupted by Serpentine, back when they were all bad guys. They sort of built a death trap into the roller coaster and we got stuck on it, it was a whole mess. We'd been talking about a redo date for years but never got around to it because, you know, ninja stuff."

"Ah, that's why you wanted to come here."

Jay looks at everyone else in line. Then he looks down at their clasped hands, his right and Nya's left. She's wearing the ring he made.

She follows his gaze down and holds up their hands. "You're wearing yours too, right?"

"Yeah." He holds up his other hand. The ring he made for himself is a little less elegant than hers, but also he really doesn't give a fuck about gender roles so he gave it a cool design too. Why do men always get stuck with boring old bands? Jay's has similar swirling abstractions to Nya's, but in a different shape, a cloud and a bolt of lightning.

"I meant to ask," Nya says with another step forward. "What's the stone you put in here? It's pretty and it weirdly matches like all my ninja gear."

That wasn't really the goal. But she's right. It's a sparkly light teal, a perfect contrast to the deepstone, and it easily matches all her normal non-Land-of-Lee clothes.

"Aquamarine," Jay says. "Yes, it's super on the nose, I know. The instructor insisted I use that one."

"Why?"

Jay freezes. No one down here knows they're elementals. The guy chose it because... "Because I said you remind me of the ocean."

They're at the front of the line now. Nya stares at Jay with about a bajillion emotions trying to manifest all at once, and one of the Lees running the coaster has to tap her shoulder to get her attention so they can get on.

And then, well. They ride a roller coaster. So if she had wanted to say anything about it, she doesn't get the chance. Jay thinks he's okay with that. It was just something he made up on the spot. He hadn't actually meant it. Right?

Sometimes, before a storm, the air will go eerily calm. It's a warning that all the chaos is being pulled away toward something else, a sign to wrap up and get inside before lightning strikes.

But sometimes there's plenty of warning. Dark clouds roll across the sky, winds pick up, you can feel electricity in the air.

The storm is picking up speed and it's getting very very hard to ignore.

The votes are in: Jay definitely does like a roller coaster. Not to be dramatic, but that was the most fun he's had in like... all his memory. He's actually smiling and laughing and for a while there it was easy to forget that his heart had been shattered, he can barely feel the venomous monster in all those empty cracks.

At least until he and Nya make eye contact as they're walking away from the exit, starting to look for the next ride. And somehow they're still holding hands. She's got that same happy glow that Jay is sure he has. For a moment he's overwhelmed with something, some urge in his heart that doesn't quite feel like the burning aching crackle of the monster, he doesn't know what it is but he wants to follow it. There's people and lights and noises everywhere around them but all of that sort of fades away and they are standing very close together and he can feel both his hands in hers and he doesn't even hate it, and then—

Then the monster sinks its claws into him again, zapping through his chest and asking what the hell he thinks he's doing. She's using him, she's lying to him, if he gives into his feelings then who knows what she could do to him. Remember the Administration? Remember Ras? He can't be falling for this again. He's going to get hurt. He's not some pawn in these people's games! It wraps around him, constricts him like a snake until he can barely breathe, hardens itself into a shield that refuses to let anyone in ever again.

Whatever is happening to him, Nya can see it. She takes the tiniest of steps back, gives him space. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah," Jay breathes. He pulls his hands back to himself. One of them subconsciously reaches for his heart where the monster lives. "Just dizzy, I think."

Nya nods. She knows it's a lie and she's letting it slide. He wants to feel grateful, but he can't. The monster won't let him.

"We should do something a little calmer then, huh?" Nya says, trying for a smile. "No more upside-down rides."

"Probably a good idea."

She does not take his hand again as she leads them back toward the main walkway, toward something that can hopefully let the little monster settle down and stop acting like it's protecting Jay from getting stabbed or something. He's not in danger here, he's fine, he needs to chill out.

They try a few more rides, a tamer coaster with no loops and smaller drops, the spinny teacup ride that leaves Nya looking lightheaded and dazed and full of regret because Jay got really excited about spinning them as fast as he possibly could. They're enough to keep the monster at bay for a moment, but every time he starts feeling that pull toward Nya again it comes back, hissing and burning and thrashing and reminding him what happens when he trusts people. Nya takes the whole thing with grace, she holds his hand when he lets her, but she doesn't get any closer than that. At one point she reaches up to help him fix his hair, and she's smiling with her dimple showing and Jay can feel his heart doing an entire somersault before the creature claws at him again. The sudden shift almost makes him nauseous, so they decide to stay away from rides for a bit.

They get food. Super unhealthy snacks, mostly stuff covered in sugar or butter or both, a big bag of cotton candy because the smallest size was gargantuan. Jay thinks they'll have to take it home and let Lloyd and Wyldfyre have the rest. He doesn't think he's had this much junk food all in one go, like, ever. Probably before the Merge when he was younger, but if course he wouldn't remember that. He blames his nausea on the food, then.

Nya takes his hand again, and when he doesn't pull away she leads him to a whole street lined with carnival games. It's like watching the clouds part with an angelic chorus in the background. These are the base upon which arcade games were built. Can they stay here forever? Is that too much to ask?

As the light in the bunkers changes and the sun slowly clinks its way underground, Jay and Nya walk home with at least five stuffed animals, and whatever is left of the cotton candy bag. It means they can't keep holding hands on the way home, and Jay isn't sure if he's sad about that or not. Has he turned into a teenager with a crush or something? Is he as bad as Wyldfyre? No, no one is as bad as her, good golly she's annoying. She'll probably be whining about Roby as soon as they get back home. In fact she's probably already talking Lloyd's ear off.

"That was fun," Jay admits while the monster is giving him a break.

"Yeah," Nya agrees. She's not even looking at him funny for being so genuine, too distracted with juggling their winnings. "Much better than the first time."

"Maybe it's a good thing I don't remember that time. I mean, if it happened." He still doesn't quite believe her. Though he's starting to think he wants to.

They reach the front porch just as the sun goes out and the stars turn on. As impressive as they are, Jay is starting to miss seeing the real sky. They had really good views from the monastery — and also from his nights in the Wyldness, can't forget that. He follows Nya inside and reminds himself that he's had plenty of happy moments before staying with the ninja. He's tolerating them. This little trip is no different. Tomorrow, they get back to business and he starts following a tiny lead he heard about yesterday. They've got to find Arin's parents before he gets too attached to the ninja down here.

He starts to pull out the quilts again like he does every night, after they've piled their winnings on the kitchen table and made some real food, and after Wyldfyre discovers the joys of pure sugar in fluffy cloud form.

Thing is, Jay never liked this solution for the sleeping arrangement. It never felt great, banishing himself to the couch like a divorcee. He's the reason they're here, he's supposed to be leading them and yet he's sleeping on the couch and it always sucked. But tonight it feels worse somehow, for reasons he thinks might be somewhat related to the amusement park date, and the ring he's still wearing.

The monster crackles and spreads into his veins as he folds the blankets back up. What does he think he's doing? He's not going upstairs to share with a ninja, is he?

Is he?

Jay ignores the little creature as best he can. It claws at him but he pretends not to notice. He hopes this choice is worth it.

It's not that he's attached to her or anything. It's just been a long day with a lot of walking and maybe he's starting to feel a little sore from riding roller coasters, and sleeping on the couch just sounded really uncomfortable. Yeah, that's it.

He knocks on the door. The beast screams at him and he breathes, he ignores it.

The door opens, and Nya looks at him, very confused. She's taken her makeup off and let her hair down, and Jay feels that pull in his heart again, closely followed by a screech from the monster.

"Hi," she says. "Everything okay?"

Jay nods. Great, he's realizing that he has to actually ask now— "I... the couch seemed really uncomfortable, you know, since we were out all day, and maybe I really am too old for that many roller coasters—"

Nya smiles at him like she's done so many times today. She steps away from the door to let him in.

"I didn't even ask yet."

"Just come in, you big dummy."

Ah, so she means that affectionately. Okay. He follows her inside and closes the door behind him.

"I've been sleeping on this side," Nya says, flopping onto the bed. Her pajamas consist of a big t-shirt and bright blue shorts that barely come halfway down her thighs. This is a normal thing to notice, by the way. Jay has a normal reaction to it. Girls are pretty, remember?

She sits up and waves him over. There's a little sparkle on her hand.

"You're still wearing your ring," Jay says as he sits on the edge of the bed. He'd taken his off and left it on the table downstairs, next to the little dragon plushie.

Nya looks at her hand. "Oh. Yeah, I guess I should take it off for the night, huh?"

They're not even married.

Jay sees her reach for something else after she sets the ring on her nightstand. There's a thin chain of a necklace peeking out from under her shirt, and she makes a small motion like she's reaching for whatever pendant she's tucked away. She decides to leave it, though. Jay briefly considers asking about the necklace, but decides not to. It feels like a question that's far more intimate than he's ready for.

In fact, he's not sure he wants to talk at all, for fear of the monster that's doing its best to make him bleed. Isn't it supposed to be protecting his heart? All it's done today is hurt him. Trying to talk to Nya is just going to make things worse, and he doesn't actually want to be mean to her after today, so he reaches for the lamp on his stand and turns it off without a word. He can feel Nya watching him as he lays down as close to the edge as possible. He is tolerating this, nothing more.

Nya clicks off her light too. "Good night, Jay."

Jay doesn't say anything. The monster burns when he even considers it.

The weeks have started to blur together. Jay isn't sure how long they've been down here now, but all four of them are kind of ready to see the actual sky again. He distantly wonders if the ninja who didn't come with them are worried. Obviously they wouldn't be worried about him, but they might be worried about how long Lloyd and Nya and Wyldfyre have been gone.

Good news is, there are leads. Finally.

And by leads, Jay means that Wyldfyre came home in the middle of the day and yoinked Lloyd away with no more explanation than "Something weird is going on, come with me!" And Jay would have asked what weird thing was happening, because everything here is weird, but he hadn't actually been there because he'd been busy following his own lead. Nya had to tell him about it later.

Anyway the real lead is where Jay was, after hearing a whisper the other day, pre-amusement-park-date, about a secret door behind the neighborhood playground where only Lees seem to go. He'd crept away while the ninja were doing whatever they do, just to see if it was real before bringing anyone else. And, yeah, it was real.

So neither of these leads are much, but they're something. Maybe there's some kind of map back there that can tell them where the parents are. Then they'll be one step closer to a ticket out of here. And while sleeping on a real bed is nice, the awkward silence hanging between him and Nya for the past couple nights is starting to get unbearable.

Of course she's the only one home when he gets back, because the kids have disappeared to investigate Wyldfyre's weird thing.

"Everything is weird," Jay tells Nya.

She just shrugs. "At least it's something."

"Sure, as long as they don't get caught."

"They'll be fine."

Jay tells Nya about the secret door. "There's a keypad on the side. I didn't see the code when one of the Lees went through, but worst case scenario—" He sparks a tiny bolt of electricity at his fingertips.

(It still feels weird to use lightning, especially outside a fight. He tries to avoid it out of habit more than anything else. He's so used to being watched, to the fear that someone could see him use his power and that he'd get in trouble, or get taken advantage of. He uses it in emergencies, only when there's no other option. It's safer like this anyway, electricity can be volatile and dangerous and he's not trying to destroy the bunker.

...Yet.)

Nya frowns. Maybe she doesn't like the idea of him using his lightning either.

"What? I'm not gonna destroy it. Just a little zap to get us in, no harm done."

She sighs. Did she really think he was going to just bring this whole place down? He's not that bad. Shatterspin didn't turn him into a villain, he's actually trying to avoid drawing attention, and he doesn't want to hurt innocent people on purpose. Maybe Lee. But he's got nothing against anyone else here. Also Lee is far from innocent.

"No, it's not that," she says.

Oh. "Then what?"

She shakes her head. "Nothing. Never mind, we can go check it out—"

Jay groans. "Don't do that. If you want something, just ask. What is it?"

"You get mad at me when I ask for things sometimes."

Okay that is true, he can admit it. Especially when she asks about... Oh, not this again. "You better not say it's—"

"Please, Jay. Just once while Lloyd and Wyldfyre are working on something else. There's a session in like two hours, we might see Arin's parents there."

"But this isn't about his parents," Jay says, for what feels like the millionth time. He really thought they were past this by now. "This is about you and what you want with me. We've more than convinced all the neighbors of our cover story, there's no reason to go dancing except that you want to, or you think you see some future where we end up together and—"

Something changes. Nya has been looking like she wants to say something, waiting for him to pause so she can jump back in, but here she just stops like she's seen a ghost.

Jay keeps going because he wasn't done anyway. "What if I just don't want to? Don't I get a say in that?"

Nya swallows. Her eyes are misty, but Jay isn't really sure why. He wasn't even trying to be mean, he didn't say anything hurtful even though he definitely could have. He kind of wants to ask what he said wrong, just because he's confused now, but he didn't say anything wrong at all.

Anyway, Nya finds her voice again before Jay can make up his mind. "I didn't mean to do that, Jay. I'm sorry. I just... I thought it might help you remember."

What if there isn't anything to remember?

"Sorry," she says again.

Then she just... leaves. Takes a deep breath and takes herself out the front door.

The little monster wraps tighter around Jay's heart, trying to comfort him but still choking him out anyway. It doesn't know how to do anything else.

He did the right thing. Was there even a wrong thing to do here? He was just standing up for himself, he has no idea why Nya is acting like this. He's confused and it feels... weird. Bad. He doesn't even feel guilty, he simply doesn't understand what just happened. He clearly said something that bothered her.

For fuck's sake why does he care about her feelings all of a sudden? Why does he even care to find out what he said that set her off? Why does he want to know how to fix things? There's nothing to fix. The marriage is fake, he barely knows her.

What he knows is that she beat him in the tournament with no remorse—

That's not true. She looked heartbroken. There were tears in her eyes when she talked to him afterward.

Okay but she didn't come after him when Ras kicked him out.

And if she did, he would have chased her away.

She's not supposed to care about him! And Jay isn't supposed to care about her either.

He finds himself upstairs, in their shared room. Nya's side of the closet is open, her gi tossed over the edge of the bed like she's preparing to use it soon. Her phone is up here too, on the nightstand. Not much point in keeping them handy if there's no reception, he supposes.

Curious, Jay sits on her side of the bed and reaches for her phone. He doesn't know the code and isn't going to risk frying it with his power, but he taps it to open her lock screen.

Predictably, it's her, with her Jay. It looks like an older photo, lower-res, and Nya looks way younger. The boy next to her is barely recognizable, with his baby face and shorter redder hair and the way he's smiling with his entire body as she kisses his cheek. But, distantly, he thinks he can see himself in this boy's face. Sort of. But also not at all. The selfie is a little blurry, and he can barely make out the frame of a roller coaster behind them. She did say they went to a theme park on their first date.

Hard to fake a photo like that. It's definitely possible to fake it, but it would need a lot of effort. Probably about the same effort as painting a spare bedroom blue and filling it with things Jay likes, things they couldn't have known that he likes just from the one time they bumped into each other. Specific comics and games, the posters and fairy lights and glow in the dark paint on the walls, the iridescent shimmer of the stupid stickers on the PC because he's like a magpie about shiny things.

Jay lays back on the bed. He's still sure he's not imagining that it smells a certain way, like that very specific saltwater sandy sunshine at the beach. Maybe it's a weird thing to notice if she doesn't, can't wear perfume. Does she just use nice deodorant or something? They're using the same soap so that can't be it, he would have noticed. Whatever, maybe he's imagining it after all. And right now he's overthinking it on purpose so he doesn't have to overthink what he said to make her so upset.

The monster hisses and sends sparks through his veins. Why does he care? Why does he care about any of this? He should just go investigate the secret door by himself if Nya wants to waste time by mourning her old boyfriend.

Dancing was our thing.

I thought it might help you remember.

He does want to remember. It's kind of a long-term goal here, to find out what happened to make him forget and maybe to try and get his old life back. He just wants his own memories, not something that someone else puts into his head. He doesn't want her to tell him who he is.

Jay clicks open Nya's lock screen again. Nothing comes back to him. That boy in the photo is a completely different person, even if they look the same. But, in a way, so is Nya.

Okay, fine. Fine.

The monster, to its credit, tries to stop him. But Jay has gotten pretty good at ignoring it, at least for little bits at a time. He figures, just once, he can wait until it makes him bleed. Maybe if he pushes it down long enough, he and Nya can be on good terms. Just enough to survive the rest of this mission. They're so close to done that he can taste it. Just hold it together until they escape, then he can take his prize and go and never see them again.

Isn't that what he wants?

Nya is sitting outside, at the table on the porch. She looks surprised to see him.

Good news is, Jay is equally surprised. "You... you were right here?" he asks. "I thought you, like, left left."

"I did," Nya says. "Walked around for a little bit, talked to Sharon across the street. But I didn't know what else to do, so I'm here now, I guess."

Jay sits down across from her. "What did you guys talk about?"

Nya raises an eyebrow.

"Yeah, you're right, I don't care."

She smiles, though it's not nearly enough to show her dimple. "We weren't gossiping about you, if you're worried about that. Just chatting about her dog."

"Like I said, don't care."

"If you say so."

It's a nice day. It's always a nice day, there's literally no clouds here. Jay wonders how these people don't go insane if nothing ever changes. He's pretty sure the thing about the wedding rings was the biggest drama the neighbors have seen since the Merge.

The monster fused to his heart won't let him apologize, reminds him he didn't do anything wrong. So he says the next best thing he can think of. "I said something that made you upset earlier, but I don't... I don't know what it was."

Nya looks up at him, seems to see that ghost again. Maybe it's the same ghost that haunts the blue room in the monastery. But after a moment she shakes her head. "No, it's not you. It was something else. I realized I was wrong, that's all. Kind of embarrassing to be proven wrong, you know?"

Jay nods slowly. He doesn't believe her. Or, he does, but he knows she's also keeping something to herself. Maybe it doesn't matter, then. Maybe it's just the ghost.

He's going to tell himself again that he doesn't actually care about her, or her feelings or anything. He just doesn't want to be on awful terms with her while they're working together, that's all. That's what he tells himself.

"What time did you say that dance class was?"

Nya had been looking away, watching the artificial sunset on the walls. She looks back to him, confused. "Six."

"If we leave now, we'll probably still make it."

She stares at him. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Just once, though. And only if you'll stop asking after this."

"We don't have to—"

Oh, for fuck's sake. Jay gets up and walks over to her, holds out his hand. "I don't want to play games, and I know you're just going to ask again next week. So do you want to dance or not?"

Nya just keeps looking at him for a moment. At his hand outstretched to her, at the deepstone ring on his finger, at his face as if the ghost of her Jay has possessed him or something and she's trying to parse out who exactly she's talking to. Then she smiles again, a little sheepish because she knows he's right, and she takes his hand. "I get bragging rights if we find out you're just as good at this as you are at rhythm games."

For some reason, Jay feels like he's going to lose this bet.

A storm is coming. Clouds are looming on the horizon, coming steadily closer.

This is dumb this is dumb this is so stupid stupid dumb. Is it too late to change his mind and go home?

See, Jay knew already that this was going to mean being very very close to each other. And they've been close already, she helped him hobble through the portal gate to their monastery when his leg was broken, they held hands almost all day at Lee's little amusement park, they share a bed. Opposite sides of the bed where they don't have to interact, but still. Jay has regrets. Dancing is something else entirely, it means they have to be close and coordinated and just touching all the time. He watches as some of the other pairs move around together, some of them daintily holding hands as if they just met, clumsy footwork keeping them almost locked in place, some with more fluidity who are pressed together in a way that makes him shudder. He and Nya will not be doing that.

"Ready?" Nya holds her hand out to him.

Jay frowns. "No." But he said he would do this, just once so she would stop bothering him, and he's a man of his word. Shatterspin may have turned most of his morals upside down, but he does keep promises. He takes her hand. This, at least, is familiar.

"Just keep an eye out for any nametags that say Jenny or Barry," Nya says. As if that's what they're actually here for.

(Her nametag says Maya. He's been wondering why she chose that name. It's awfully similar to her own, but whenever she says it, it's obvious the name holds meaning to her.

Jay doesn't even feel that about his own name. For all he knows, it's another lie. Jay Walker sounds like a name for a comic relief cartoon character. But he's gotten used to it, he responds to it at least, so it'll do for now. He likes birds.)

Unfortunately, despite every reservation he's had about this, Nya was right. It's like riding a bicycle, in a scenario where he doesn't think he's ever looked at a bicycle except in pictures but somehow he gets his feet on the pedals and accidentally wins a triathlon.

The concept of a tango sounds familiar, he's heard of it in passing and knows it's a type of dance, but Jay doesn't even know what it's supposed to look like. And yet.

And yet every time he twirls Nya around, it feels like following instinct. Every time she spins back to him, he catches her like she belongs there. Not once do they bump into anyone else or step on each other's toes. Just how many side gigs did he have before losing his memory?

It feels like riding roller coasters again, the rush when they're close. Somehow it's not at all as scary as he thought it would be. He flinches only a moment when she comes closer, one hand on his shoulder, almost close enough for their noses to touch. But it's only a moment, and it doesn't feel wrong to let his hand land on her back. Like riding a bike.

She's not going to hurt him, of course she's not. Look where they are.

She's not going to hurt him. He trusts her.

Jay is only peripherally aware of everyone else around them as he lets instinct take over. The less he thinks about any of this, the more comfortable he feels. So don't think, Jay. Just do. He catches her again as the song finishes, holds her close exactly like he told himself he would absolutely not do. She's blushing brighter than Wyldfyre's hair and something about that is satisfying. He pulls her even closer, just for a brief moment, just so their noses do touch, then before she can process it, Jay, still on instinct here, twists his body and pulls her with him into a dip. Nya is looking up at him with reflections of a thousand stars in her eyes, though there probably aren't even that many lights in the bunker ceiling, and she's still blushing up a storm. Her hands are locked at the back of his neck, a solid comforting weight. She trusts him too.

The monster sparks in his heart, sending shockwaves down his veins. She shouldn't trust him. She doesn't even know him.

"You're in perfect sync!"

It takes Jay a moment to realize someone is talking to them, about them. Then he looks up and sees everyone, everyone else staring at them with wide eyes. He nearly drops Nya. They're not like that, he was just...

He pulls her up, and they're pressed together again for half a second before he pushes her away. No, they're not like that.

But they can't be making a scene here, not like this. The entire little town knows them now because of the whole wedding ring business, and Jay isn't about to become the Land of Lee's new reality show if it looks like they're suddenly not getting along. So yeah he pushes Nya away on instinct because he's scared, but he doesn't let go of her hand. "Sorry," he says, just loud enough for everyone else to hear, but so that it sounds like he's only talking to her. "You started slipping."

Nya knows it's a lie to save face. She looks almost hurt, under the leftover glow she had from being in his arms. She's really down bad for him, isn't she? She really believes he's someone else.

In the interest of not causing a scene, Jay pulls her close again when the next song starts. "Guess we don't need lessons, huh?"

She smiles, halfhearted. "We do work pretty well together."

Hm. She's not wrong, technically. But it's obvious she isn't just talking about dancing.

The moment is over, everyone else goes back to their own partners, and Jay relaxes a bit. Nya stays close to him, as close as he'll let her. It does take a few more songs, but eventually her hand is on his shoulder again and he can feel warmth spreading from wherever they touch like alcohol in his veins. It feels better when they're not being watched, when it's just something between them and not a performance for all their neighbors. He wonders if she feels it too, perhaps a tiny shockwave up her spine when he moves his hand to her back, a tiny spark at their fingertips, the way they're breathing in sync when their faces are so close he can't even see her properly.

Admittedly, Jay likes this. But it's not bringing him any closer to remembering anything. It's not bringing back Nya's boyfriend. But he decides to push that away because it doesn't quite feel like it matters right now. He likes this. He never thought he would be able to trust someone enough to be so physically intimately close.

At an announcement that they've got one song left for the night, Nya leans in and kisses his cheek, too fast for him to react.

Jay looks at her. She's smiling, blushing worse than before and at least having the decency to look embarrassed. But her dimple is out and Jay can't possibly be too upset at her, even with the monster clawing and zapping and screeching at him not to trust her.

He thinks he's supposed to remember something. He wants to remember. But nothing is coming back. Only the angry claws and thrashing of the beast that's fused itself to the shattered remains of his heart.

Well, even if he doesn't remember, even if he never remembers who he used to be, he still likes dancing. And despite everything, he wants to trust Nya.

At the end of the song, this time she dips him instead. They're pretty much the same height so it doesn't feel off balance or anything, and though he tells himself he doesn't trust her, it doesn't feel wrong to let her hold him like this. Jay wonders if Nya can see stars in his eyes too, or if Ras took that from him a long time ago.

Her eyes flick down, almost too fast to notice. Not fast enough for Jay to miss it, though. He knows what she wants. Even a few hours ago it would have been enough to make him push her away again without a second thought, but... Maybe it's just their position now, with her hands on his back, their faces very close, as they have been all night. He doesn't think he wants to kiss her, not right now, it would feel like a performance again with so many people around. But the thought doesn't immediately repulse him either.

Instead of kissing him, she opens her mouth to say something, and then decides against it in the end. She just smiles at him, and leans her head down so their noses touch. Then she pulls him back up, and it's over. They survived dancing. Jay survived dancing.

It feels empty when they separate again. Does he miss the contact? He didn't like it that much, did he?

Lightning forms when electrons are knocked off of water particles in a cloud, and the charge builds and builds as more electrons fall into the bottom, desperate to attach themselves back to positive ions. When enough of them get separated, that's when a storm starts to build.

The instructor says something or other about the next meeting time, sort of implying that he might add a higher level for — staring directly at Jay and Nya — people who are pretty solid on the basics. Doesn't matter, they're not doing this again. They're so close to finding their missing people, Jay hopes that excuse enough not to come back. But he has to admit he didn't hate it. He almost misses having her in his arms.

The monster in his heart would disagree. It's still lashing out, hissing to him that he can use this against her because she trusts him now. He tries to ignore it.

They're still holding hands the entire way back home, but they don't say anything. Jay can feel the way Nya's fingers are restless between his own, like she's nervous about something. He glances up at her as he opens the door. Their little cloud feels like static, a swiftly building storm, electricity buzzing in the air around them.

The monster is screaming at him, wrapping itself around him and constricting and choking him and digging its claws and its teeth. He doesn't love her!! He can't! He's not even capable of love anymore!

Inside all the lights are off. Whatever Lloyd and Wyldfyre are up to, it's taking them a while. They're ninja, they'll be fine.

When the charge in the cloud is strong enough, the electrons become so desperate to balance out that they'll strike whatever is closest. Usually that's the positive ions in the cloud, but sometimes they strike downward. Trees, buildings, the ground.

It's interesting that water is the cause of all that, isn't it?

Jay closes the door behind himself, then pulls Nya back by their still clasped hands until they're pressed together again, just like dancing. Something about the electricity crackling in his blood is addicting, whether it's from the monster or himself. Something about the way she's looking at him in the dark, about how his hands instinctively land on her waist to pull her closer still.

Somewhere in the back of his brain, Jay makes up the feeble excuse that he's only doing this because dancing seems to have sparked some kind of physical hunger in him, negative ions looking for a positive, and definitely not because he's gotten attached to her or anything. He doesn't love her.

Nya leans into him, her hands on his shoulders and clearly hesitating from doing more. She's just as bad with her wanting, probably even worse than he is, but she's holding herself back. She's not afraid of him, is she?

She should be, the monster hisses.

It looks like Nya is about to say something, but Jay shakes his head to tell her not to. If they talk he'll start overthinking again, and he might listen to the monster.

Their noses are touching, more than a cute little bump like before. He wouldn't be able to see her even if they'd turned the lights on. They're breathing the same air. Nya smells like the ocean. Maybe that's just part of her, then.

The storm may calm down by morning but right now the static buildup is too strong. Those electrons have to go somewhere.

Jay reaches up to touch Nya's face, to pull her in because for once he actually wants this and he doesn't think Nya is going to close the gap herself. How considerate of her. He hopes that just for a little while, she gives up on being considerate. Let her take what she wants. He'll give it to her, just for tonight.

When they kiss, Jay feels... he doesn't know how he feels. Part of him was starting to believe her, starting to think maybe she could actually fix him, that maybe he's a princess under a curse and maybe just maybe, true love's kiss might help him remember. But he doesn't.

While that's disappointing and all, they are still kissing and he doesn't hate it. Like dancing, like roller coasters, he was scared but now that he's here he doesn't want it to stop. Lightning strikes wherever they're touching and he likes it, he wants it. So he's able to shove that disappointment down to live with the shatter monster for a while. Kissing Nya doesn't fix him, and maybe nothing will. That doesn't mean he can't enjoy it. She's enjoying it, if the way she's fully pushing him against the door means anything.

Nya's hands slide over his shoulders, to the back of his neck, into his hair, fighting to undo the ponytail he'd actually put effort into before they hurried off to the dance class.

"I've missed you," she breathes, her lips never leaving his.

Oh. She really thought this would fix him, didn't she?

Jay doesn't know what to say to that at all. Good news is he doesn't have to say anything, because she doesn't wait for a response, she just goes right back to kissing him. Oh, she's been starving. That's almost amusing enough to make Jay forget what she just said. Almost.

The monster fused to his heart is just as confused as Jay is. Reveling in the feeling of being wanted, the way she trusts him so easily without question, but terrified because he wants to trust her too. Because he's yearning so much that it hurts. It wants to cower away, it wants to preen under the attention, and all it's doing is causing more electricity to surge through his veins, digging its teeth and making him bleed. In an odd way, that's not unwelcome either.

Jay can't even be bothered to wonder where the other two are. But in case they do come home, he would rather not be blocking the front door or making out in the kitchen.

He gently pushes Nya off of him, and takes her hands before she can get too upset about it. "Upstairs?"

It's too dark to really see her, but without a doubt her eyes have just gone very wide. Does she think he's implying— "Really?"

"You want to stay down here?" Is he implying—?

"No, but I thought—"

He kisses her again, just a little one. "Come on." Well. Whatever happens happens.

They don't turn on any lights, probably because of some unspoken mutual superstition that it'll kill the mood. But they somehow make it upstairs without any stubbed toes so that's good, and they barely make it into their room before Nya grabs his tie and pulls him in to kiss him again. Exactly what he was hoping for, she's taking what she wants now that the floodgates are open. The storm is raging in full force and he doesn't want to do anything to try and calm it.

(Not even when I missed you I missed you I missed you echoes in the thunder. She still wants him to be someone else. Someone he doesn't even know.

But it's getting harder and harder to say she's lying. Whoever she misses, he had to have been real. Every breath, every touch, the way she giggles under her breath when she backs him up and he hits the edge of the bed and loses balance for a second before falling back, it's too real. No one puts this much effort into a lie. Something about that makes it worse. Whoever her Jay was, she loved him. A lot. But he's not that person. Even if he believes her, if he was that person before, he isn't anymore, and he never will be again. What's happened to him since the Merge can't be undone, he won't ever go back to who he was, even if he somehow remembers. Eventually she's going to have to come to terms with all of that too. And when she does, will she even still love him? Does she only think she loves him because she's convinced he's someone else? That he'll wake up one day and be magically healed, exactly the man she's been hoping he'd be?

That's the monster talking, Jay reminds himself. It doesn't matter. Right now she loves him. Sort of. It doesn't have to last long. Just tonight. Anything longer and he risks actually loving her back. Assuming that's something he's even capable of anymore.

He wants to love her, though. He wants that more than anything.)

Nya pauses for a moment, hovering over him while he's on his back, sprawled over most of the bed. She's got stars in her eyes again, and there aren't even lights on in here. Jay is pretty sure he looks like a mess, he knows his hair is undone and his tie is on the floor somewhere probably, and his shirt is mostly unbuttoned and Nya is looking at him like he hung the stars that they can't even see down here.

She looks pretty too. She always does. The stars, the dimple, the messy remains of her ponytail coming loose, the way she's looking at him and the way she's touching him, it makes his heart swell and makes lightning crackle in his blood.

"Were you always this sappy?" Jay asks before his internal monologue can get too poetic about a pretty girl and her stupid cute dimple.

She smiles. Yup, that dimple. "Me?" She laughs, too genuine. "No, I wasn't."

If she heard his silent reminder that he's not her Jay, she doesn't say it. Maybe she just wants to ride out the storm like he does. Revel in the lightning and the rain, while they have it.

The destructive force they could be together... Now that's a path to consider. If she really loves him this much then maybe...

No, he pushes that thought away too. She wouldn't. She's a good guy, a hero. And Jay's been shattered and fused with a monster, he's not a hero and he doesn't want to be. What they have is temporary, nothing more.

He reaches up to cup her face in his hand, and she happily leans into his touch.

"You used to be this sappy, though," she says. She doesn't wait for a response before leaning down and kissing him again, his lips his freckles and the soft spot under his ear that sends shockwaves through his whole body. Maybe she already knows what he was going to say.

I don't remember.

That wasn't me.

He's not here anymore.

The words are stolen from him before he can say them, much to his monster's dismay. It's constricting him so tightly he can't breathe. He still hopes he can survive the storm, and he thinks he can as long as he doesn't let go of Nya. As long as he can still feel her breath matching his, her heartbeat under his hands. As long as he has her, as long as she doesn't leave…

(As always, Jay won't remember, but Nya will:

I wish we had more time. We never seem to get a break.

And leave you here? I don't think so. I just got you back!

No matter what happens next, you are the best you.)

Sunrise comes, exactly the same way that it does every morning. The same color change pattern in the lights, the same slow clinking of the machinery moving a giant lamp overhead, and Jay grasping for the cloud fluff of whatever his dream was about. It feels so close, taunting him by slipping away just before he can touch it.

This morning is different, though. Just a little. Because he and Nya have been sharing a bed for the past few nights, but always on opposite sides, and always with Jay waking up at the crack of dawn so he can get up and get dressed and start about his day before Nya even stirs. Today he wakes up in her arms, his face tucked into the crook of her shoulder, his arms around her waist and hers over his shoulders, both of them in various states of undress. He thinks she may be wearing his button-up from yesterday, loosely thrown over her shoulders and not much else underneath. It's warm where they're touching, his mouth on her collarbone, his hands on her back and hers buried in his hair, combing her fingers through with tenderness Jay didn't even know was possible. He's barely awake for now, but with a few seconds more of this he might just melt his way back to sleep.

"You smell like the ocean," Jay says, muffled in her shoulder, in the collar of his own shirt.

Nya hums. She is awake, then. Her voice sounds like putting a seashell to his ear. "I'm still allergic to perfume." She stops to think. "Maybe it's because I kind of was the ocean for a while?"

She was... what?

It's too early for this.

"It's too early for this," Jay says, in case he didn't say it out loud. He settles in closer, happy to sleep in just this once.

He can feel Nya sigh more than he hears it. "It was the only way to save— to save someone. From drowning."

Someone. Her Jay. He's not stupid, he knows what she's talking about and he knows she's trying very hard not to imply that he, the Jay here now in her arms, is supposed to remember. How considerate.

It's too early for this. He pretends not to know who she's talking about.

"Did it work?"

"It did. He survived. It cost me my humanity, and it took a long time and it was physically just a horrific, painful process to sever myself from the sea, but I would do it again if I had to."

"You must love him a lot."

"Mm-hm." Nya kisses his temple, holds him against her chest.

Jay isn't sure how he feels about any of this. He wants to doubt her. Becoming the ocean and then separating from it? If that's true then why can she still control water? Why was she allowed to go back to normal, back to her old life, while he's been shattered with no hope of ever going back to whoever he used to be? She chose to do that and Jay never asked for any of this.

No. Too early. He's too comfy right here to let that monster say anything. It hisses and writhes in the empty spaces of his heart, seeps into his veins, grows tendrils that wrap around his heart to try and cover it, to protect it from being shattered again. It burns but it's too early and he just wants to stay here. She loves someone else more than she could ever love him but right now she's holding him and he wants to stay here as long as he can. He wishes he could let Nya protect his heart instead. He wishes there was a way to actually fix him, to kill the monster trying to swallow him from the inside out.

"I love you," Nya says, as if she needed to clarify who she was talking about.

Jay doesn't want to do this. He's tired of this fight. So he doesn't say anything. Please don't make him talk, he just wants to stay here.

She doesn't say anything more, maybe she knows it's too early for this. Last night was the best Jay has slept in a long time, even though he still felt like he was chasing some dregs of memories as he woke up. It hurts to know they can't always have this. They may not even get a chance again after this morning. Something magic happened last night and it may not have been enough for him to remember his old life, but why would he need that if he has one comfy cozy morning here?

If every morning was like this, he wouldn't even care about being a bounty hunter anymore.

Jay slides his hands up Nya's back, under her shirt that's actually his shirt, spreads his hands out to rest his palms against her skin. She smells like the ocean.

He wants to love her so bad. He does.

More than that, he wants to believe her.

"Do you think Lloyd and Wyldfyre ever came home last night?"

"I didn't hear them."

Nya snorts. It's cute. "We were otherwise occupied."

She's not wrong.

Jay realizes this means they're going to have to untangle themselves and leave their beautiful cozy haven. He almost hopes the other two didn't find anything, that his own lead is a dead end, just for another night like that. For a chance at an actual soft domestic little morning together.

All this does is give him another reminder he can't have that. He's not hers.

Jay gets up first as usual, but this time he swoops down to kiss Nya's cheek on his way up. She blushes furiously which is also cute. He takes his time finding new clothes for the day, not in any rush to get going, though the thought of the other two does nag at him. Not that he cares. He just doesn't want them to get caught.

(It's getting old to keep making that excuse, but it's all he's got and also it's true.)

"Are those... balloon animals?"

"What?"

Nya looks like she's trying not to laugh, in a very endeared kind of way. "You..." She motions vaguely with her hand. "On your underwear."

He looks down. Yeah, those sure look like balloon animals. He hadn't noticed when putting them on, but they are kind of cute. "What, shattered goodness means I can't have a sense of whimsy?"

At that, Nya snorts again and breaks down into giggles. "I knew you were still in there somewhere."

This again. Jay pretends not to catch on to what she's saying. "They were the first ones I grabbed. Totally coincidental."

"Sure," Nya says, not believing a word out of his mouth.

Can't this last just a little longer before they have to go back? Please?

Jay finishes getting dressed, and he remembers how Nya had stared at him that first morning, in the mirror while he was tying his hair back. He glances at her as he pulls it back now. Yeah, she likes it, she's not even hiding that she's staring at him. Practically got little cartoon hearts floating around her head.

"You wanna take a picture?" he says, bringing her back to earth. "It'll last longer."

"Shut up," Nya says, affection dripping from every word.

When she sits up and stretches, Jay sees her necklace again. The chain is short, holding a golden medallion just over her heart. How poetic. It's shaped like half a yin-yang symbol with a black dragon embossed into the gold. It looks familiar, but probably not in the way Nya would hope. It's familiar because these things are part of old old Ninjago culture. Jay knows what it is, what it means, because he's seen photos of them in history pages online, he's sent couples off to other realms who had two matching halves of a medallion like this and he knew he couldn't possibly separate them. And he's got a pretty good idea of who gave it to her.

The monster in his heart stirs. It isn't quite awake yet but it's going to be, very soon. Jay is already mourning the magic of the storm that somehow carried over past sunrise, and now it's going to get cut even shorter, he can already tell. The storm is beautiful while it lasts, but the wreckage left in its wake is devastating.

Nya sees him looking and gives him a soft smile. It's enough to see her dimple, but there's something melancholy about it too. She touches the pendant. "I told you we weren't just dating, Jay."

An implied, You really don't remember? This is a bond that runs deeper than marriage and you still don't remember?

How is he supposed to remember that? He doesn't have the other half of the medallion, he doesn't have anything except a fake ring that he made as part of a cover story.

"That wasn't me," Jay says before he can stop himself. The monster is awake now, and it burns, electricity sparking through his veins but not in a way he likes. He wants to love her. This was what it was trying to protect him from and he didn't listen.

Nya just blinks at him, surprised at the sudden change. "I... That isn't— Jay, it was you. I know it was, even if you don't remember." She gets up from the bed and stands in front of him, reaches to him and takes his face in her hands. "It was so, so weirdly on brand for you," she says with that melancholy look again. "We were in the middle of a battle, didn't know if we would survive, and we got a short moment to breathe and then you just turned and asked like our lives depended on it." She stops to smile to herself. "It was probably one of the most romantic things you've ever done."

You, you, you.

I've missed you.

I've missed him.

She leans in to kiss him, soft and warm and gentle. It's love that's meant for someone else. "I wish you could remember."

Jay takes her hands to push her away, takes a step back. He doesn't want to do this right now. It's such a tired argument, why can't she just listen? "You can't fix me. I'm not the person you think I am. Even if you're right, and if I somehow remember everything, I'm still..." He looks down at his hands. The monster is trying to sink itself into the rest of him, he can feel static itching at his fingertips the way it did whenever he used shatterspin. The urge to push her away, to say something he knows will make her upset, to hurt her on purpose so she'll stop hurting him on accident. He swallows it down and tries to breathe. "I'm not him. I didn't give you that pendant, I gave you a ring. I suggest you wear it when we go to look for your friends."

With that, he leaves. If he stays any longer he knows she's going to try and convince him again, and as much as he wants to believe her, he just can't. Blame it on his memory loss, on being shattered, on the inky black creature that's fused itself into the cracks left in his heart. Doesn't matter. He just knows he's not the man she's been looking for, and he never will be, and if he keeps leading her on like this then they're both going to get hurt.

Not that he cares about her.

He doesn't.

He's only trying to protect himself anyway.

"Pretty good for someone who claims to have never been a ninja."

Please just drop it.

"Maybe I was just a good thief."

"I'm guessing Lee can still live even with a few less of his bodies."

"We can't kill him! It's not the ninja way."

"I'm not a ninja!" And maybe stabbing someone will be therapeutic. Everything has been off since this morning and he would like to pretend it never happened, please.

"I was starting to think you left, McCoolGuy."

"Not yet." Not without her, as much as he hates to admit it. Or the others, he supposes, since the ninja leaving with Arin's parents was kind of the main goal.

He doesn't care about them, he doesn't, he can't. They're pretending last night didn't happen, that he isn't attached to her and he doesn't care, he doesn't. He had one job and he's done it. Time to go.

Nya doesn't take his hand. "We're saving people here."

Right, because they're heroes.

And they're also stupid. They'll stay here fighting ghosts until they're all hollowed out and then what?

Do they think he'll come back for them if their souls are drained?

Would he come back for them?

Maybe their Jay would have. Maybe their Jay would stay and help them fight a hopeless losing battle.

He's not their Jay.

For some reason, and please do not ask what that reason is, Jay is still following the ninja around like he's got nowhere else to be.

Okay, he kind of has nowhere else to be. Best bet is he would be back to hunting Ras, both for Zeatrix and for himself and not for the fate of the world or anything because he's not a hero. Ras just happens to be threatening the fate of the Merged Lands, but that has nothing to do with Jay. Anyway, he's not exactly on a time limit there, and he does admit the ninja have a sort of parallel goal with him since they don't really like Ras either. You know, fate of the world et cetera. So he's still with them. Somehow. They've dragged him through the Spectral Lands and through the dungeons under the City of Temples, and now they want him to help them fight Thunderfang again.

Why do they even want his help? What makes them think he even wants to be here?

Why is he still here? He's a grown man and he's not part of their little team. He can leave if he wants.

Though, if he does leave, he'd be willing to bet all the money they still haven't given him that Nya wouldn't come with him. He has to admit that he wants that now, it's too difficult to act like that night didn't happen, like he doesn't care about her and he's only still with them for the money. But Nya's got a good heart. She's not going to give up on her team, she's going to go wake up a mythical dragon. She's going to try and save the world, hopeless as the task may be.

Jay is not.

"I'm not doing any of that."

He feels their eyes on him. They've gained a couple people since leaving the Land of Lee.

He'd give almost anything to go back. Is that weird?

"We've been a little busy," Lloyd says. He sounds exhausted. And he's not wrong, they've had their hands kind of full.

But that little monster has had a pretty solid hold on Jay's heart for a while now, ever since he saw Nya's pendant. It made the mistake of going soft, letting someone into the cracks it was supposed to be protecting. It's not as forgiving to Lloyd as it might be to Nya. Yeah Jay's being selfish and so what? He's supposed to care about them? They're just using him like everyone else has. It's a fun little game we're all playing, isn't it? Convince the clueless wanderer that he's a good guy, that they know him, that he meant something to him, then throw him into the fire, drag him along to fight a spectral chaos dragon, which by the way is the same one that broke his leg last time, during a fight he didn't even want to be part of.

He doesn't mean anything to the ninja. They don't even know him.

Even if they're telling the truth, they don't know him anymore. None of them bothered to find him, he's the one who found them, why should he trust them?

"Yeah, busy almost getting me killed. I'm done."

It feels like they're back to square one. Like all the undercover downtime they had didn't do shit for them. They found Arin's parents, yippee. But as convinced as the ninja are that they can somehow fix Jay, turn him into whoever they want him to be, they can't. He doesn't even want to be that person.

To think he almost believed them. He shouldn't have stayed with them so long. This has just been a waste of time.

He looks to Nya, still clinging onto some desperate hope that she'll understand. Maybe if he trusted her, she trusted him too. Maybe she believed him.

The look in her eyes says he's dead wrong. She's angry. No dimple, no soft sleepy giggles. Like he's hurt her, though this time he didn't even mean to. "You really haven't changed at all, have you?" she says, pain in every word. "After all this time I really thought you cared about something other than yourself. I thought I saw glimpses of your old self, moments where you knew the truth that you were a hero."

This again. Always this. You, you, you. Your old self. You were a hero. I missed you. I know who you are even if no one else does. We know your name, you can trust us. I know your power, I can help you harness it. We have a room we painted blue and a bunch of things you didn't know you loved and we promise this isn't another nefarious plot to take advantage of you. Sources, he's been so fucking stupid.

Jay doesn't quite realize that he's hopped down from his mech until he's face to face with Nya. She still reminds him of the ocean, a misty marine layer surrounding him when he gets close.

He wants to kiss her again. Under almost any other circumstances he would.

They never seem to catch a break, do they?

"I'm not one of you," Jay says. "I'm not a fucking hero, and I never will be. I told you, you can't fix me, there's nothing left to even fix."

"We weren't trying to—"

"Stop lying! All you want is your old boyfriend back. You don't want me. You never wanted me." None of it was real, was it? A perfect little neighborhood all the way down to the people he was supposed to trust. He shouldn't have trusted her. Of course she never wanted him. He's been so stupid, he fell for it again, and the worst part is he still cares about her.

"I did want you. I still do," Nya says. Water drips from her fingertips, an excess of power that she won't use against him. He almost wishes she would. It would be easier to fight head on than to pull her out of her own lie. She's told herself this story so many times that even she's believing it. Pathetic. She reaches for him, sees the water and pulls back. "I wasn't lying to you, Jay. I was looking for you everywhere. I gave up my humanity, I gave everything for you. I'm not giving up on you."

She gave everything for someone else, for the ghost of whoever lived in the blue room at their monastery. She doesn't care about him.

Nya reigns in her water, and she reaches for him again. "I love you."

He steps back, doesn't let her touch him. He doesn't trust her. She's lying. "You love your Jay."

"You are my Jay."

"No I'm not!" Why can't they just listen to him? "The Jay you knew is dead, Nya."

Everyone is still. His voice echoes in the cavern.

The Jay you knew is dead.

He's not coming back.

He thinks he's supposed to regret what he's just said. Maybe their Jay would have. But that's not him. Instead they got stuck with a guy who's been shattered and remolded into a pawn for other people to use and do away with as they please, who can't ever be one of them because he can't get out from under the shadow of the ghost of someone else. He can't ever love Nya because she doesn't love him. He feels like an idiot for thinking that maybe she could.

No, she only ever wanted her Jay. And he's gone. He's dead.

Jay takes a step back once, twice, three times. Nya doesn't try to follow him.

"Try not to die before you pay me."

He climbs back up into his mech. The monster that's taken up residence inside him is constricting his heart, crackling and burning and suffocating him, and it tells him he's doing the right thing. If he stays he'll just get attached to them and he'll always have to live with the ghost of who they think he is, they'll never love him like they promised. It's better this way. It's better this way.

As he turns, finds an opening in the wall he can leave through, he thinks he hears voices hushed behind him.

"Nya..."

"It's fine. We've got a dragon to wake."

"If you need—"

"Lloyd, I'm fine."

It's better this way.

They're heroes. They're okay risking their lives to fight a wannabe source dragon. And Jay is leaving to find Ras. It's better this way. He didn't want to be one of them. Whatever happened that night with Nya was always supposed to be a one-time thing, it was never going to last.

It's better this way.