Archive of Our Own

After Nya merged with the sea and removed the flooded water from the city, the ninja didn't have any time to grieve, because they were straight to helping out. They rescued people stuck in buildings, worked to clear the streets of the totalled cars, and also dealt with their own messes, like the bounty smashed into a building, or… Jay's sub-car, abandoned at the bottom, water still hanging tight to each corner.

Jay was too close to leaving them, way too close, and honestly, it might have been the closest any of them had ever been. It wasn't like a cliff they dangled from and all they had to do to not die was hold on, they could use their strength for that, those things they trained for.

With drowning, it was nothing like that. Strength couldn't fight through the infection in his lings, couldn't use his muscly biceps to pump his own lungs over and over. All he could do through the night was breathe with his own dying lungs, concentrate, and hope that he could hold on until they could get him to a hospital, that was if they could.

Which, they couldn't. Who knows what could have happened if Nya didn't draw the sea-water out as she merged with it.

His condition would have continued to worsen, as it already had from the moment they dragged him from the water, thrashing into a coughing fit in Nya's arms, then to the weak breaths on the couch, and eventually, as they tried to sleep, the failing, desperate breaths followed by the slowest breathing rate he'd ever encountered.

Jay would have died.

But he was already standing by pure willpower, like he forgot all about what happened, how much pain he must have been in through the night, Cole knew the feeling too well, as he had kept waking up to the sounds of those coughing fits or weak mumbles.

Even his mind was slipping, he grew more delirious by the hour, like his body really was about to die, and his mind was preparing him for it so the whole thing wouldn't be as scary.

Really, it was just a lack of oxygen catching up to his brain, reducing every one of his body functions into a mush. That was why he trailed so far behind them as they rushed to the rooftop to watch Nya that he assumed he was still asleep, utterly exhausted from the sleepless, breathless night.

So, with all that, he really shouldn't be helping with the clean up right now.

Honestly, Cole only used this as a distraction from what just happened, he knew that the moment he got back to the Monastery, he would crumble, and so would Jay. But he also had the itching feeling that his friend wasn't only using this as a distraction from the emotions, but to cover up just how messed up his body really is.

Even if someone magically draws all the sea-water from your lungs, it doesn't erase the fact that it happened. Your body needs time to catch up, and your lungs would certainly need to heal from the wounds of salt-water clutching its insides.

"Jay, look." Cole jogged to his side, where he was collecting rubble into a dumpster, moving slower by the minute.

Nya just merged with the Sea, and maybe it would take a few more hours for that fact to settle in, so that's why he was able to worry for his friend right now. However, he had no ides about Jay, he could usually read him like a book, but now was different. He had no idea how Jay would take the idea he was about to present.

Continuing to throw rubble into the dumpster, he was completely ignored, intentionally or not, he had to get his attention.

Maybe Jay was still focusing on the breathing, in and out, just to keep himself alive for his friends to do something. If he was still doing that now, he didn't want to dissappoint like he did last night, having gave up on the idea of a hospital so strongly that Nya felt that the only way to save him was to become the very ocean.

He grabbed his arm, which immediately sent his breathing flying upwards in volume, Cole took a breath and looked into his eyes instead of his shuddering mouth, "You should take a break."

Jay dragged his eyes up, the large piece of rubble in his hands hanging in his limp arms, until he tried dragging it up an inch, but fumbled completely and hunched over with a groan. "Jay?" Cole gripped his arm tighter, and put the other on his shoulder. He watched the weakness in his eyes, half-lidded, taking slow, tired blinks, pupils stretching upwards like he was rolling his eyes at him, ready to start an argument.

But no argument was coming, Jay didn't even speak, he just tilted hiss head in curiosity and looked back down at the rubble, still damp and cold from the flood. "Huh?" he finally muttered.

Well, he definitely needed a break.

Recovery was in order, but he would recover, and much quicker than he was expecting when they were told they had no way to get the sea water out.

"Look, you just recovered from the sea-water, you need a break, you're clearly tired." he urged, grabbing the boulder from his hands - he expected a protest, but there wasn't any, his arms just dangled when he took the weight off him.

Still, he assumed a protest would come eventually, and maybe he'd get too tired soon to walk to wherever he could possibly rest out here, so he pinged his location, a clear message that he needed assistance with the stubborn Jay.

As his communicator had broke in the crash, he was told by Wu to have someone stay with him; while all the others left on their own, Cole insisted he'd stay with Jay.

He was the one who found him under the water, heard the static, broken sounds from his communicator, hearing the slightest glimpses of the word 'help', then, he was first to feel that something was off. So, he wanted to be there, because even through all that, he didn't feel like he did enough.

"Don't-" Jay coughed, howling out his lungs, then he held his chest painfully as he did when he declared he would fight with them, "don't need a break."

Hopefully Zane would be here to pressure him into doing so soon. Cole was great at giving emotional support, and Jay would listen, but if he dared make him break his bodily autonomy with a request to take a break, he wouldn't listen at all.

Chucking the rubble into the dumpster, he slowly led Jay down to sit on a rock, who now, after talking, was breathing much louder, and he finally had time to notice all the sweat clinging to his face. "Yes, you do, you…" he noticed his shaky hands, "clearly do."

It worried him that Jay didn't jump up and attempt a backflip to prove that he was okay, which must mean that he was really tired, so he joined him on the large piece of rubble, and held his back.

He held his comm link and responded to Zane, who had been calmly asking questions as he talked to Jay, he sounded calm, but was clearly trying to keep his wires untangled, "We got anywhere for him to take a break?"

"The Bounty is damaged, but he is able to rest in there, or you can return to the NGTV building." he replied, voice straight.

The Monastery was out of the question right now, not only is it too far away, but returning felt like finishing the mission, and finishing the mission without Nya meant she was truly gone - neither of them could handle that right now.

"No… Nya-" he sucked in a shaky, awful breath, Cole held him tighter, "Nya fixed me, water…" he suddenly limped forward, and he had to shoot himself up to catch him.

"Jay!"

Watching his face, he switched his mic back on for Zane, or anyone to hear the commotion. Now, he definitely needed more than a break, some medicine was in order, but… that would still fix him up eventually, a doctor can work wonders.

"Water… out, not in lungs—" he coughed again, disproving his statement, "I can—" he tried to drag himself up with the side of the wet dumpster, but tumbled straight back down, his knees buckling like his bones had turned to mush, Cole had to lean on the ground to catch him this time, the position they ended up in was a tangle of Jay's useless and sweaty limbs.

"You can't, you need help." he hauled him over his shoulder, but he was still awake, that was good. He pursed his lips together and looked around, then spotted Zane rushing over, face straight, emotionless.

Walking him a few steps turned into dragging him very quickly, the breaths getting louder, scratchier, just like last night, and suddenly, the moment Zane got close enough, he was panting even harder, grabbing his chest, his entire body shaking. Cole stumbled a few steps, but Jay was almost limp now, "Zane, is he- he okay?" he shook him a little, but it just made the breaths worse, even worse than what he was like when they first got him from the water, "What's happening?"

Zane supported Jay from the other side, whose mouth now dangled open, taking large, short and quick breaths to drag air in, to which he would stop for a few seconds, but it looked as if stopping just made it worse, so it turned into only those deep, quick breaths.

"He's not yet recovered from the seawater." Zane scanned him, but he didn't have time to analyse much, because Jay tumbled over even more.

"What do we do?" he yelled, talking over the voices calling through his comm-link, Lloyd and Kai's panicked voices.

"Don't-" Jay was talking again, his voice now a horrid, gruelling and scratchy burst of coughs, "Don't need—" he half-repeated his phase like a mantra, but he never got anywhere. Then, he couldn't try again, he completely toppled over, to which Zane took that he needed to carry him as his breaths got all the more loud.

Now, they were running, and Cole followed, watching as Jay's arm flopped around in the air, hanging limply over Zane's, with the other one probably clutching his chest as if he wanted to make a hole in it to shove as much air in there as he could. "He needs a hospital."

Cole panted as they ran as fast as they could, but he didn't understand why. Was his life in danger? Did he really need such urgent help?

And why was his breathing getting worse?

It couldn't get worse, there was no way for more water to get in his lungs.

When he noticed his tiredness, he simply thought it was like what it was when he dragged himself up the stairs, unable to walk after concentrating all his energy into each breath for up to twelve hours. He was able to fight that fight because of the adrenaline, will to help Nya, and he thought the little tumble he noticed earlier was just a sign he needed his legs to rest; he could breathe now, because of both his own attempts through the night, and Nya, he just needed to… rest his legs!

"Why does he need a—" he rushed, his words also tripping over his stumbling breath, "What's wrong with him?"

"I suspect a-" Zane paused, bringing Jay tighter into his arms when Cole caught up, he took a deep sigh and faced the floor before he spoke again, "I don't know."

—

"The medications stopped the attack, but his breathing is still shallow." a doctor explained, stood outside Jay's bed, the curtain drawn, they couldn't see him right now, nor had they let him be seen when they rushed him into the hospital, doctors immediately scrambling for him.

It was really scary; the rush, the precision, the advanced words doctors and nurses suddenly yelled around a barely conscious Jay, who was still breathing so hevaily, but it didn't do much for him at all as he got less aware by the second.

They weren't allowed in, and if they were, it would have been difficult to navigate around the rush of the hospital, or the tight halls of the ER. There were many people here in the tall hospital, the height of it basically made it the only hospital still able to run, the water was gone from the lower levels, but it was ransacked, so there were people in beds on the higher levels, and the emergencies, like Jay, having equipment hauled down flights of stairs, elevators useless at the moment.

It was a total mess, but the doctors were working quickly as they were called back in in around ten minutes.

On the other side of the curtain, he still heard a mess of his breathing, quieter than before, but not normal at all, there were still a couple doctors and nurses tending to him as this one explained the problems with their friend.

"Attack?" Cole questioned, looking to Zane. "What do you mean?"

"We suspect asthma, the asthma medication worked when given."

"What-" he stammered, running his hand through his hair, "Why that? Why would he have that?"

The doctor moved the curtain and took a peak inside when the beeping of a monitor got louder, they both tensed, but they continued talking to him, who seemed calm enough. Well, maybe that was just an act to keep them calm, but they were smart enough to know being first served in a packed ER was not a good thing.

"Could you tell us what happened in more detail?" he wrote down something on a clipboard, "You said as you were coming in that he… drowned, correct?"

Cole tapped his feet and crossed his arms, remembering the last twelve hours of their lives. That night may have honestly been the scariest night of his life, the most uncertain any of their survivals had been.

It should have been so much scarier for Jay, but he questioned if he was even aware of anything. Right now, the struggle for oxygen had only been using the few bits it managed to get for his lungs, and not his brain, and that was sending him into a dreamland, mumbling and unaware as they ran closer to the hospital.

His mind ran with the sounds through the night, how even when he slept, he couldn't get completely immersed in the sleep as he woke up a couple times an hour to a larger jolt of his breath.

Zane spoke, taking over, "Yesterday, he nearly drowned." he pointed to Cole, who perked up, "We rescued him, he did not stop breathing, but he was extremely weak, as seawater still resided in his lungs."

'Resided?' Cole questioned the wording. That word made it feel like it simply took its place, rested there for a while like it was popping down for a visit, but it didn't do that at all: the water entered, and it tore down the walls, making the whole structure unstable, dragging Jay closer and closer to his fate.

A fate that was clear to everyone with Zane's solemn explanation, but he didn't want to say the truth out loud either, no matter if it followed logic.

The doctor waved for him to continue, "The water was drawn from his lungs, and he was able to fight."

"Then he suddenly appeared like this, yes?" the doctor asked, neither of them could be bothered to catch his name.

Zane nodded, "Yes, after the battle was won, he grew weaker, until…" he trailed off, crossing his arms and sighing quietly with his eyes shut, like a person grieving over the casket at a funeral. Jay would be okay, but even he couldn't explain what had happened for him to end up like this, something only befitting of denial of death.

But he wouldn't die, he hated that he had to remind himself of that. Nya saved him, and he would recover from this, so the thought shouldn't even be invading his mind.

"Well," the doctor started, and it zoned the both of them back into reality, where the busy ER buzzed, the working phones they'd dragged from other floors ringing, a few puddles of water splashing, then, the chaos on the other side of the curtain - voices they couldn't make out, hacking and coughing coming from a bed. They tensed up and listened to the doctor again, "getting the water out wouldn't fix everything, but it would have kept him alive."

Alive wasn't enough, Jay needed to recover, get out of this wretched hospital. How angry would Jay be if he didn't do so after Nya sacrificed everything for him to survive.

"As for the asthma…" he continued, and it reminded Cole of that again. That was something that couldn't be fixed, but there was still a chance it couldn't be that, right?

"What- you think it's because of this, or- or-" he couldn't get out any of his words.

"Respiratory infections are a leading cause of it, and having seawater in your lungs all night definitely counts."

"So…" Cole stepped closer, his arm on his hip, the other to his ear at his comm-link, he really wanted to know how close the others were now. They had told the others that they were at the hospital, and they had immediately said they were on their way. "He has it because of the water?"

He didn't want to believe it, somehow, it felt like the end of the world.

Because he had been terrified as he looked for Jay, actively drowning in his cramped, flooded sub-car, desperate for the coughing to stop once they got him to the surface, and worried himself to death through the night. After all that, he woke up to the seawater being painfully ripped from his lungs, but… he was okay, so a tremendous amount of relief had washed over him.

But suddenly, it was all toppling down again, and it would forever be a thing that affected him just because of one… little mistake.

Maybe if he got to him in time, before he couldn't hold on anymore, then none of this would be happening.

"There's a possibility it's not asthma, though, which is why we're going to give him antibiotics, oxygen therapy, and continue with tests in case, it may be a lot of other things that are treatable." he explained, and Cole calmed a little so he could focus on the sounds behind the curtain, the bed seemed quieter now, no more jolting of the curtains as the doctors and nurses in there rushed around. A hand was on his shoulder, a blue long sleeve vest, a clipboard in the other arm clung to his chest, "But asthma is manageable, he'll have a designated treatment plan, and with it, he could live a normal life, barely aware of the symptoms."

Cole dragged his head to the hand on his shoulder, and Zane trying to take a peak through the curtain, with two nurses coming out of it now, "Vitals are stable for now," she started, then her voice got quieter as she explained more medical language to the doctor, handing him a clipboard filled with writing.

After she left, the usual doctor perked up with a smile, then held open the curtain, smiling, "Bloods will be taken in a few minutes, but you can stay with him for now." one more doctor resided in there looking over an IV bag, then, he finally looked down at Jay.

Before he had a chance to look over the state of him, his comm link rang, then several voices rang through his eardrums.

"We're here!"

"How's he doing?"

Is he okay>"

He couldn't make out who said what at all, but it was definitely Kai, Lloyd, and Pixal.

Zane answered, "He is stable…" he looked down, Jay had his eyes half-open, he wasn't saying a thing with his face just contorted in pain, breaths slow and tiring. "But tired, he is being administered oxygen." Cole wondered if he was conscious, his eyes may be open and he looked to be reacting to the pain, but not at their voices one bit.

"Right, we're coming in, where are you guys?" Kai asked, the group speaking one at a time now.

"It is too busy for you to enter, you should wait until he has a private room, me and Cole are struggling just to fit—"

"We don't care about that, Zane!" Lloyd yelled, and behind the drawn curtains they heard a door burst open. It was probably them, most definitely Kai being the one bursting the doors open. Cole gave the doctor still squeezed in there a look, and she didn't give much of a reaction, confused for a moment, then nodded.

"It looks like that is fine, then, you can come in, we are—"

Before he could finish his sentence, the curtains flew up, and in came Kai, Lloyd, and Pixal, who all froze at the sight of him on the bed, a sight that neither Cole or Zane had time to process yet. Zane looked to the doctor frozen in her tracks, "Sorry for their intrusion."

—

He couldn't breathe.

A mask was on his face, he was laid down, more like half-way to sitting up, monitors around him, just a whole bunch of medical equipment. He didn't know where he was, 'a hospital, clearly a hospital.' he told himself as his vision slipped, blurred and twisted in every unnatural way.

It was just like last night, how he was asleep, but somehow aware of every moment his breath got harsher, quieter, when breathing or concentrating on Nya holding his hand got even harder.

All he remembered was the pain, and it had came straight back for him.

But they already defeated Wojira, Kaalmar, the merlopians were gone. Nya had merged with the sea and saved his life, so why was he-

"Jay, you with us buddy?" a voice called from above him. It didn't sound like Lloyd or Pixals, probably not Zane, maybe it was Cole, or Kai. He realised that it was Kai when he grabbed his arm, light, but filled with a lot of panic at the speed in which he grabbed it when the blurry figures entered the room, his hands were warm, not like how cold he was through the night.

He had been brought to a hospital when breathing suddenly got so much harder, and him being burst through the doors in Zane's arms must not have been that long ago, he still felt so awful, deep in his lungs attacking him.

It wasn't the water, he knew all the water was out; it was simply his lungs not being pleased with something that happened in the past, already done and dealt with!

When he got inside, he was placed on a bed, and he was so tired he couldn't concentrate on anything else but breathing, he felt like if he didn't manually live through each breath, in and out, he would stop. His lungs didn't do what they were meant to do, his body betraying him.

So why did it hit so soon after Nya left? After she fixed him?

He hadn't had any time to process it yet.

They got the oxygen mask over his face, stuck some things in his arms and on his chest, and he realised through recalling that he was getting a little more aware. He groaned when he breathed another deep breath, shaky, his chest raising up so high, painful in the exhale, and the inhale, only painless and full of air in the moment it rested at the highest point.

The mask didn't feel like it was doing enough, well, he didn't actually know what any of the things on his body and the doctors scrambling around him were there to do.

"What happened?" Lloyd asked from above him, he tried to will his blurred vision away, the tears stinging the bottom of his eyes. The atmosphere of the room didn't feel as tense as it was meant to be, but it was probably just the muffling of his ear-drums that made it seem so calm; what wasn't calm was himself, everything still hurt so much, his throat, his chest, his eyes that wanted to drop and just sleep forever.

Not die, he didn't feel like he was dying, he was just so tired - manually breathing for a whole night was exhausting.

He wanted to know what happened as much as Lloyd did - he knew he couldn't breathe, but not exactly why, so he listened. "We suspect he developed asthma from the seawater that was in his lungs, and what happened before was an asthma attack." Oh. Jay recalled the rapid breathing, how it still lasted now, until finally, he gathered the strength to clutch his chest and squirm his head around the pillow.

The bed was uncomfortable, he had been put on there in quite an emergency. Still in half of his GI, he believes he has a memory of his shirt being cut off, a hospital gown on top, but his pants still on, still slightly damp from the night before, but not wet, not cold, just uncomfortable.

When he was first dragged from the water, he was so cold; the water rising to his neck in the sub-car, it sent shivers all over each body part it passed, his neck was the worst. As soon as it touched his collarbone, he was gasping for air as if he was already drowning, taken back by the shock of the cold seawater.

"An asthma attack?" multiple of the ninja yelled.

He looked around, watching the doctor kneel down to his level, put a stethoscope to his chest, seemed like he was still trying to get out of that attack.

Suddenly, she pulled the mask from his face, his breathing getting so much harder the moment she did, and he felt as if this wasn't a hospital anymore, but a camp designed to torture him. He was just about ready to fight his way out of there when she wrapped another bulkier one around his face, and all was right again.

Well, probably at about 40-60% of what his lungs were really capable of, but better. He sunk into the pillow again, trying to drag himself back to reality. His friends were here, he knew that, he felt aware, but his eyes, his lungs, his entire body wasn't complying.

He willed everything in his body to watch the doctor above him getting closer to his face, "Jay, do you know where you are right now?"

Jay doubted anyone could hear what he would say through the bulky mask, but he spoke anyway, chest still burning, "H-" he immediately coughed, to which the doctor sat him up even more, he regained his breath and tried again, "Hospital. I'm at the…" he looked to his friends now, they were here, all staring at him so hard like they needed to catch a glimpse of him before he died.

He wasn't dying! Someone had to remind him of that.

"What happened?" he looked to the ceiling.

Cole was by his side, he realised, and he grabbed his hand. Both of them knew he didn't have the strength to fight it. "Great, well, what happened is we think you had an asthma attack."

He groaned and tilted his head back, his sweaty hair soaking the pillow; he didn't want to know what happened, he wanted to know why. Why would the water in his lungs (that was already out, mind you) still be affecting him when he could fight that whole battle no problem.

Well, there were a few problems, but he would ignore that.

"I don't have asthma." he was quick to challenge her.

The doctor - he believed she was a doctor, maybe a nurse - grabbed a bag from a crash cart, took out the objects from the plastic bags, then another one worked in, a nurse joined his side, took his weak arm and placed it on a side table.

"What you doing?" he questioned, he realised how weak his voice really sounded. It was the voice of someone about to pass out at any moment, but he wasn't, he was just stuck at that point, the moment where your brain realises 'oh, I'm going to faint', before all your memories get jumbled up and your body tumbles.

"Blood test, you could have developed something other than asthma because of the seawater."

He hoped that was the case, he needed something not chronic, something he could get past.

Constantly wondering when he'd be sent into another attack like that would be a reminder of what Nya sacrificed, just for it to not fully fix it. He would have really betrayed her - survived through the night with too much seawater in his lungs, actively dying, just to succumb to some stupid, dumb asthma.

"Right." he acknowledged, and watched as the creepy needle poked into him and drew out some dark red blood. "But it's probably not asthma right? It's something that can…" he sucked in a deep breath, talking was hard, and he was getting even sleepier, "it'll be something that can be fixed." he assured to himself.

"Asthma is not commonly life threatening, it can be easily managed."

"Okay, but-" he failed to speak once again, he was getting really tired of it, but it was a good enough of a distraction for the emotional pain that was bound to hit the team once they got back home, "I can survive anything, you know."

The doctor seemed to completely ignore him, because she removed the needle with a pinch, put a cotton bud on top, and in her hand was now a small vile of his blood, and… Cole was still holding his hand, he hadn't really noticed much, he knew it was there, squeezed it when he got scared or in too much pain, but his brain never really went, 'that's Cole's hand, I'm holding my friends hand like a scared little kid.'

"Well, we won't know anything 'til the labs come back." she put the vile away, the nurse whisking it out the room, "While we wait, we're going to get you a chest x-ray to look for any water or fluid still left in your lungs." she stood up and wrote more down, how he hated not knowing what terrible things people wrote down about him, how he was so out if it when he arrived that he didn't make out any of their loud, panicked voices.

He groaned and let his fall back again, there was nowhere else to look besides the doctor, or the ceiling, he wouldn't look to his right, where his friends stood around him, watching his body fail him.

Problem with that was looking up made breathing worse, somehow, and he was really getting tired now, he needed to concentrate even more to not let himself fall asleep on the uncomfortable, quickly made bed he got shoved onto in the rush. Though, it was better than that touch, where he was still so wet, where he knew that laying down made it harder to breathe, but he didn't have the breath to tell his friends to sit him up.

At least Nya was there.

She wasn't now.

He groaned and had no choice but to turn to Cole, still holding his hand. He noticed the IV in his arm, the tubes and wires that ran from those things into some unknown place behind his bed, something probably obvious to the others, and what made him look all the more vulnerable.

"Are you in pain?" Zane asked, and Jay closed his eyes, he didn't want to answer that because he shouldn't be feeling that.

The doctor kneeled down, and guided his arm back to the bed, he had to answer whatever questions she threw at him if he did want to prove that he could "survive anything". "Could you rate your pain; scale of one to ten?"

Grabbing his chest, he spoke through the uncomfortable mask, "Five, or- uh… six."

"We're going to get you something for the pain."

He nodded, and watched the doctor leave, really just to ignore his friends.

Well, time for the waiting game.

—

"You have asthma."

Jay froze in his tracks, well, on the bed mid yawn, still attached to all the medical equipment.

The others had given him some privacy for some more exams to get to this diagnosis, but now, this was a diagnosis he wouldn't accept, and he suddenly really wanted the ninja back. He wasn't meant to still be broken, he was up on his feet, so why would he crash down like this?

"Are you sure?" he asked through the mask that still muffled his voice, but this one less so, he had adopted a smaller mask once his breathing had gradually improved over the hours.

The doctor nodded and handed him an… inhaler. He reluctantly took it, and spent about half a second looking it over before he chucked it onto the side table. "It can be a lot to process, especially with how you ended up here." she kneeled down and put a hand on his shoulder as he stared down at the sheets, gripping them hard.

Finally, he was in a private room, which clearly meant he was spending at least the night here, where he wouldn't get a single moment to process what just happened - Nya, she left. Though, he didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

She took the inhaler from the table and began to demonstrate its use, "Well, first, you need to know how to use it in case an emergency arises, I also have a—" she took out a pamphlet titled How to manage your asthma. The cover a little corny, overly happy for the situation he was in.

He didn't want to be so worked up about this, but he was. His thoughts befitted only a little kid, he didn't have time for them as a ninja, as one of the few people literally saving the world from a life ending doom every few months.

But he couldn't stop them from coming, and he couldn't stop this from happening. So there was already that.

"I don't need it, you-" he took a deep breath, but only to prepare himself for the ramble, not because his breathing was still so hard or anything, "you need to run more tests or something, 'cause, because Nya saved me." he coughed, and held his chest, but tried to supress it as his palm confidently bashing his heart in determination.

He noticed the beeping of the heart monitor growing quicker, the numbers going from the green that had frequently turned to orange, to now a permanent, blasting red.

"You're having another asthma attack," she leaned forward to his trembling face, already doused in sweat, she then raced back up, a crash cart entering the room, and replaced the IV bag with another nurse. "Jay, I need you to breathe on my count into this, okay?" another nurse said, replacing his mask back to the bulkier one he wore before.

Suddenly, it felt real.

Medicated mist blew around the mask, and his breathing relieved as quickly as it started. Finally, when he was finished, he just felt tired, there wasn't many other ways to describe the feeling when that came on so suddenly, just like how he assumed one of those attacks went down.

The new nurse that entered lowered his head down to the pillow, his head turned to the door wide open. Outside were the others watching, all but Wu, the others had told him he was caught up with removing the Bounty from the wreckage of a building, but would be coming soon. He wondered how Master Wu would look at him, with more or less pity as the others.

"Vitals are back in normal range." his primary doctor said, sighing deeply, she ran a cloth over his head, wiping the awful sweat.

The statement made no sense, how could his "vitals" be so stable when he still could barely take in a breath, and now, as more mist blew around the mask, it quickly changed to normal, as normal as he could be right now - that quick change from bad to good, good to bad, didn't seem stable at all.

Light was shone into his eyes, a stethoscope on his chest again, and honestly, at this point Jay might actually be fine with dying here, at least that was some certainty.

He did the chest x-ray, all those silly tests that had him breathing "on my count", blowing into stupid tubes that checked if his lungs were really failing on him after a lifetime of working perfectly fine - all of that just to come to the diagnosis they already suspected when they got him in there. It felt as if he failed a test he'd worked so hard for -

just trying to hold onto the sounds of his friends coming up with a plan, trying to comfort him as much as they could.

"My friends, can they," his voice scratched, he really sounded awful, and he had to take a break to let it reset before another coughing fit came his way, "come in?"

"Yes, 'course they can." the nurse waved them inside, and Jay finally didn't take their eyes off them because this felt just like last night, knowing that while he himself was watching each breath, he wouldn't have had the willpower to do it without Nya's hands.

Before he knew it, they were there, grabbing his hand, but the hold blocked by either the drip draped over the bed, the pulse oximeter clipped to his finger, or just the overall weakness of his fingers trying to grip back. Cole was there first, taking that hand, and not pulling away because he was too weak to hold back, or leaving because he felt like the only way to help was to sacrifice everything.

"I have asthma." was the first thing he said, looking directly at all five of their faces.

Kai put a hand over the two of them, just placing it there, keeping them warm. "Yeah, we know, buddy."

"But Nya saved me."

The others gave a glance at each-other, then returned to the bed, huddled all close on his right, the side with the arm laced with the two horrible IVs. "I know…" Kai fell further into the hold, and used his other hand to rub his eyes.

"Can I be a ninja?" he asked, tears prickling the corners of his eyes, making his whole face turn red at the attempts to stop them from falling. "Can I still fight for…" For Nya?

To find a way to bring her back.

The way.

"Actually, many professional athletes have this condition, it does not necessarily hinder ones ability to do what they enjoy." Zane added very manner-of-factly.

Jay just huffed and dragged his right arm to his chest, still beating, he survived the night, and that was that. After hours of just breathing, he really thought that he wouldn't make it; despite that, he kept up with the breathing, rhythmic, trying not to let the awful feeling in his throat bother him.

"I'm positive you'll recover." the new nurse joined, grinning softy.

Jay turned back to the wires and drips over his bed, the hospital gown, as he was now fully dressed for "the occasion", and the figures of his friends blurred at the edges of his peripheral vision.

"Yeah." he finally squeezed Cole's hand, "For Nya, I'll recover for Nya."