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The red ninja always falls asleep first.
The girl one, not the guy. He stays up deep into the night, sometimes pretending to go to bed before slipping into the courtyard to stare at the stars when he thinks nobody’s noticed that he's disappeared, and other times spending the hours perched at the kitchen counter with his head in his hands, or his hands cupping a mug of hot chocolate that will probably be poured away and replaced by the whiskey from the upper cabinet that they think Rogue hasn't discovered.
He has no interest in unpacking that guy's issues, or uncovering why a group of elite ninja has a fully stocked cabinet of alcohol. And cigarettes in a lower drawer. After all, he supposes he's got a few issues of his own, if the bottles of little white bricks he was consistently supplied by the Administration said anything.
(He checks the inner pocket of his pants to make sure the two bottles he stole kept are still with him. He knows that they are, but the fear persists. He remembers what it was like, the last time he was without. He can't go through that again, and certainly not in front of these people he does not trust).
The girl, however, usually leaps onto the nearest surface she can find and sprawls upon it, completely unaware of—or unconcerned with—her surroundings. At least, she does so on the nights that she doesn't insist on sleeping curled up by one of the dragons.
And don't get him started on those animals. Usually, Rogue loves dragons. They are massive, powerful, beasts of insurmountable power that leave trails of death and destruction in the wake of all those who offend them. It is beyond admirable to him. Plus, he has had a sort of affinity for them for as far back as his memory goes—as if he had seen one before in his past life. Maybe even ridden one.
But these dragons, the ones that have—for some reason—decided to leave the wild to stay with some ninja, have given their kind a bad name. They are just like their ninja masters: talkative (dragons should not speak Ninjargon, by the way), conceited, and completely insufferable. At the very least, though, they sleep through the night and are not easily disturbed.
Small victories.
The earth ninja sleeps like his element—dormant, but never silent. Rogue doesn't understand how the others tolerate his endless snoring, and he also doesn't understand how the guy hasn't realised that there are pretty easily accessible solutions for snoring in this day and age. Rogue has lost count of how many of his co-workers have talked about their miraculous sleep machines that have saved their spouses a night of headaches.
The green ninja, who he has come to figure is their leader, hardly sleeps, but when he does so it is heavy. He had presumed that he would be easily disturbed, but has found that the difficulty is in falling asleep, not staying that way.
Well, maybe there is an issue staying that way—the guy wakes up screaming every other night. It is, frankly, very annoying, and sometimes Rogue wonders why he doesn't just take some kind of sleeping medication so that everyone else can have a full night's sleep and Rogue isn't subjected to the coddling their so-called leader gets by the older ninja when he wakes up shaking. He doesn't really think these guys are strangers to substances.
And then there is the water ninja. Nya.
He hasn't figured out her exact sleeping patterns yet, but somehow, he has some sort of innate sense about it. He has never seen her come down for breakfast as distraught as Greenie, but he is undeniably sure that she has nightmares too. He tells himself that he just made the logical assumption based on the poorly hidden (with concealer that he somehow knows is just off her shade, even though he isn't any sort of makeup guru) bags under her eyes. It is easier than confronting the part of him that feels like it knows her.
She heads to bed around the same time every night—just after the sky has gone full dark—and holds true to a routine: hug the red one and the black one as if she is going to lose them overnight, tell the younger ones to not stay up too late even though she knows that they will, kiss the green one on the forehead, then look at him from his position on the couch. Her lip twitches as if there are words attempting to escape it, and her foot taps against the hardwood as if she wants to approach him, but she allows neither body part to do as it pleases. She just nods, gives him a tight-lipped smile, and wishes him a good night before disappearing.
She is the only one who still calls him Jay, even though he insists on Rogue. He lets her because it saves him another argument. That's all.
He keeps track of all of their habits and stores the knowledge in his mind; it is too risky to leave any concrete evidence of his scheming. He can't afford to be caught too early, and he needs to complete his plan in a single night in order for it to work. If a single one of them—let alone multiple of them—catches him in the act, especially when he's hurt as he is now, he will be completely done for. Maybe he could take the younger ones, but he couldn't beat Nya in the tournament and sure as hell has no chance against someone who he's been told is destiny’s prophesied saviour of the entire world, and apparently is of the same blood of the dude who created everything within what is known of their universe.
(He could probably handle the earth guy, though).
It has been over a week since they've settled here, and while (even if he hates to admit it) his leg is doing better, he has realised that he can no longer stay here, with these people who have an impossibly strong sense of who he is.
Who he's supposed to be.
Ras, at least, fed him stories about him being a good fighter—one of the best out there, even—and being able to resist manipulation. The Administration kept it to claiming that he'd been a good, efficient worker who kept things moving while being an interesting enough coworker to spend a break time with. But these ninja keep insisting that he was kind, funny, creative, loving. Nothing useful in the slightest.
He thinks that they think the stories they tell him will encourage his memory to return, or heal the fractured signals in his brain that allowed for goodness, but all they do is convince him that the person they miss was just some stupid guy who trailed behind the other ninja and pretended to be useful while the only thing he was good for was ensuring the others didn't die of boredom. So what if the lightning ninja could tell a good joke? Rogue can light people up like Christmas trees with veins for branches.
He's sick of the narratives, and he's sick of the labels. He is not Agent Jaden “Jay” Walker. He is not Ras’s lightning warrior. And he is definitelynot the blue ninja. Like—isn't that already the girl's job?
He is tired of the liars and the lies. He is tired of the entire world pulling him in every direction while his mind refuses to reveal who he truly was. It no longer matters, because all that is left of him is the thing he became at the Tournament of the Sources. And that thing refuses to lay dormant as Jay Walker once might have.
Rogue is writing his own destiny.
He's searched this monastery inside and out, sliding off the bed he's made of the couch before dawn breaks and hobbling around to inspect each and every corner. These ninja don't have any money. He guesses that, before the Merge, their master took care of the monetary stuff (somehow), and after it they survived by stealing. He's no stranger to theft himself, but he finds it ironic that Ninjago’s so-called “heroes” are taking things from its own people.
But he doesn't really care about that. What he does care about is that they're not going to get him his money, which means that they are wasting his time.
People pay with their lives when they waste his time.
He can't use his lightning like usual, though, because it'll cause too much commotion. When he first discovered his powers, he'd realised that producing large enough lightning bolts created the sound of thunder. If he wanted to take everyone out in one fell swoop, he could try to channel a large enough bolt, but it would be far too loud, too hot, and too bright to go without drawing someone's attention.
But the commotion wouldn't be caused by thunder if he were so stupid to choose to use his lightning. Rather, in his months of experience, he's found that death by electrocution can be fairly excruciating. He can't risk anyone screaming.
For the most part, he's handled almost all of the details. It's just past midnight, now, and he stares at the blank TV as he mulls over his plan from his spot on the couch. It's a nice couch. He can see why they've insisted he used to love to fall asleep in it.
He made sure that the green one got more than just chamomile in his nightly cup of tea, and Greenie’s been out like a light for hours. Rogue had had to suppress his grin as he overheard the other ninja expressing their surprise over how easily their leader had fallen asleep. For a moment, Rogue had almost wondered if some of his goodness had returned—he drugged the kid, sure, and of course he was still planning to kill him, but he'd also gifted him with the full night of sleep he's apparently been deprived of for months.
Upon second thought…his goodness is definitely still gone.
The other ninja have been dealt with as well. The hotheaded guy got a double dose of the same stuff Rogue put in Greenie's tea, just slipped into the juice he'd sipped alongside his dinner instead. He can't deal with any wanderers, and other than the lady, he thinks those two are his biggest threats.
He didn't have to do much work for the earth guy. He simply placed a stopper in the door not long after his snoring began in order to make it easier for him to get into his room undetected. The guy's ability to sleep through anything combined with this monastery's lack of real security systems has Rogue wondering how these ninja, who have endless enemies, have never been taken out via night attack.
The younger ones fell asleep with the dragons outside, which was more like good luck than his own planning. He doesn't have grievances with them, and though he usually does not care, he doesn't see the point in getting rid of people who haven't wronged him or gotten in his way. He's angry with the ninja who have lied to him, tried to manipulate him, filled his head with lies about a man who they keep insisting is him. They're going to get what they deserve, but the kids don't have to die at his hand as well. Plus, it'll be extra work that he doesn't have enough energy for.
They can live to tell their masters’ stories.
He stands from his position on the couch, gingerly shifting his weight to figure out how to put as little strain on his wounded leg as possible before turning to leave the living room to slowly creep through the hallway lined by the ninja's bedrooms. He passes by the green one’s room, then the row of kid's rooms, then the empty room once occupied by the two nindroids, then checks that the small stopper he'd placed in the door of the earth ninja is still in place before stepping over it to continue his walk, only stopping in front of the door to the one room he hasn't snuck into and explored. He's been through everyone's belongings, not even looking for anything to steal, just searching for anything of enough value to actually be a suitable payment for his services. Of course, he came up empty.
But he could never quite muster the courage to enter her room. He told himself that it was because he didn't want to look through a woman's things, but he'd had no issue rummaging through the woman nindroid’s stuff. Maybe he just wanted to create some distance from Nya. That has to be understandable, right? After all, she’s the one who keeps insisting that she loves him when he doesn't even know her! It's getting kind of creepy.
He sighs.
Technically, he won't be killing the ninja tonight. This time is just…a test run. He needs to ensure that he'd be able to successfully go through with his plan so that, once he actually gets to it, there are no snags. He wants to say that he's prepared, but he knows that he isn't. He's missing one crucial part of his plan.
He has no idea how he's going to kill Nya.
He already knows how he'll take care of the rest of them, but his reluctance to look through her things—or really, to look at her at all—has left him completely lost concerning what he needs to do with her.
If he could slip drugs into two of the ninja's drinks, then he can slip poison in them too. Easy finish. Then, all he'd have to do is take out the earth guy. Rogue has thought about using the same tactic on him, but found that he wasn't so easy to drug—he never takes an eye off his food. He can’t stab him because the guy is massive, and if he wakes up on impact he'd easily be able to subdue him, especially with his busted leg (plus, Rogue doesn't like knives much anyway). For him, he'll have to ensure that his death is instant—which means, even if he's reluctant to, he'll have to use his lightning. He'll creep in, hover his hands over the man's heart, and stop it instantly with a charged zap. Because it is so much more concentrated than the typical methods of electrocution he uses, it should be quiet enough, and he just hopes that any potential thunder will be quiet enough to be mistaken for an obnoxious snore.
But Nya?
He's overheard them talking about her being a light sleeper; he can't sneak in. He can't slip anything into her food because she doesn't let it out of her sight for fear that the earth one will snatch something off her plate. He can't stab her, can't electrocute her, can't stop her heart. He's slow on his feet thanks to his injury, and she's probably their best fighter, so he can't take her head on. At the moment, she's simply…unkillable.
He contemplates his potential next steps for a moment, then finally decides to take a careful step forward.
“Jay?” The door swings open as if the person behind it had detected his presence, and Rogue flinches back, jumping into a defensive stance. His leg stings at the motion, and he winces.
“FSM–I mean, I was just—” he scrambles for an excuse.
Nya's eyebrows furrow, but she doesn't meet his eyes—in fact, she's looking much further down. “You shouldn't be on that leg.”
He rolls his eyes and tries to put more weight on the limb to feign strength, but almost immediately stumbles in place.
“Jay!” Nya whisper-yells as she reaches to catch him before he falls. He doesn't, and pushes her arms away as he steadies himself.
A hurt look flashes across her face, then vanishes as she steels herself. “What are you doing up so late?”
Rogue scratches the back of his head. “Uh—couldn't sleep. Your dumb couch was too…soft?” He hopes that the excuse isn't too flimsy.
Nya's eyes narrow ever so slightly, but she ultimately shrugs. “Fair. That can be bad for your back.” She pauses. “But why are you here?”
Rogue shrugs as well. “I've been doing a lot of, uh, a lot of exploring! Yeah, exploring. I got bored and realized I haven't been in this room. I didn't know it was yours.”
It's a convincing enough lie—even if it forces him to seem kinder than he'd like to be—and she steps to the side.
“Fine, then,” she eyes him suspiciously. “Don't wander around until you trip over yourself and wake everyone up. Come do your ‘exploring.’”
Rogue pauses. From over her shoulder, he can already see the most basic elements of her room: bed, dresser, wardrobe, weapons. But she's inviting him in. She's letting him into the one place he hasn't allowed himself. The one place where he'd be able to uncover her weakness. She's giving him the key to her own destruction.
He clears his throat, trying to remain levelheaded. “I mean, I could go back to bed,” he almost waits for her response, then remembers that this might be the opening he's been looking for for days. “Or, actually, since you're offering…”
Nya huffs, then grabs his wrist to pull him inside. “Just come in, Jay.”
Her room is almost exactly what he'd predicted it would be. In fact, it looks so similar to his mental image that he almost thinks that he's been here before. Maybe he wandered in at some point and forgot.
The only thing is, there's a lot less blue than he'd expected. Sure, her beddings and pillows are all baby blue, and the rug on her floor is a deep navy, but those are the only real big things. There are traces of it all over, like in the gi in the corner of the room that was likely carelessly tossed there, and in the stuffed animals by the bed, but her bedroom is fairly plain. There's a bulletin board with various ephemera on one wall, a few weapons hanging from another, and a wall of photographs on another, but otherwise it's fairly empty. He catches sight of clear empty boxes under the bed and notices that her closet looks only partially full, with hardly half of the rack being used by hangers. There are two empty hooks on the wall of weapons, as if missing a piece of the set. It's like she only lives in the room halfway.
Or someone else is supposed to be living in it with her.
Nya sits on the bed, rubbing exhaustion from her eyes as she does. Rogue remains in the doorway for a moment, simply scanning the bedroom.
“So? Satisfied with what you see?” Nya asks sarcastically.
Rogue doesn't respond, instead walking over to her cluttered desk and visually searching through the items. He’s mostly looking for things he can use against her, but finds the items to be completely harmless: blue pens, a cracked cell phone, a wallet he has to will himself not to snatch, a stack of miscellaneous blueprints, and just off to the side—
“What the heck is this thing?” Rogue holds up a raggedy stuffed animal from the corner of Nya's desk. Emphasis on animal—he has zero idea of what this thing could possibly be. The thing looks like it's been torn to pieces and painstakingly (but poorly) stitched back together with thread that doesn't match its radioactive blue fur.
Nya opens her mouth, closes it, opens it once again. Then, she pulls her gaze away from him and speaks to nothing. “His name is Mr. Cuddlywomp.”
Rogue barks an obnoxious laugh, in response to which Nya glares. Oblivious, he continues, “What kind of name is—”
“You named him, Jay. He's yours. Your mom made him for you back when you were a kid, and he got torn up when we were moving homes a few years back. You learned how to sew because you wouldn't let anyone else do it and ended up pricking yourself like, a million times,” Nya laughs under her breath as she recalls the memory.
Rogue doesn't have any memories of being a kid, or any idea of what it had been like. The Administration didn't tell him anything about his life before he started working there, Ras didn't care to tell him anything more than he had to, and the ninja have only talked to him about his teenage years.
Does he have parents who love him? Good parents who are looking for him? Waiting for him? People he can go to, who will call him theirs, amongst the liars and traitors he's found himself trapped with?
He hesitates, clutching the stuffed animal a little tighter as he traces the stitches.
It's hard to believe that he could've cared enough about some beat up thing to take the time to repair it by hand. If it were some sort of invention, it'd be a different story, but this thing is useless. He searches for some sort of self defense mechanism and comes up empty. It is literally just a ball of fluff and fabric.
He tosses it back on the desk, pretending not to notice Nya wincing in response to his carelessness. “I don't know why anyone would bother holding on to something like that.”
Nya sighs, but says nothing.
Rogue continues to walk around the room, taking in details he might find useful. Unlike the earth ninja's low bed, Nya's is slightly lofted, which would make it more difficult to reach her if he were to try to stop her heart with lightning. She's got weapons within reach from almost every angle, and he's beyond sure that she's skilled with each one, so he won't risk hand-to-hand combat. He won't beat her in a fight of elemental powers because he only knows how to use them enough to be an efficient killer—he’s not a true master like she is, and he knows it. He won't be able to get close in any way. It's looking like, as difficult as it will be to get close enough to her dinner, he'll have to go the same route as he did Greenie and the fire one.
He suppresses a groan at the thought of how stressful it will be, having to stop himself from wiping a hand over his face, before his eye catches on the bulletin board.
There's a lot of typical things that he'd expect to see; various pictures with the red one (who's apparently her brother, though Rogue almost doesn't believe it considering he's exponentially more insufferable), a polaroid of Greenie looking a lot younger and sitting on her shoulders, a photo with the rest of the ninja where this “Jay” looks scrawny, pale, and weak compared to the rest of them, a photo with an older man who looks like the red one and a woman who is Nya's carbon copy, and, scattered amongst it all, different memorabilia of the guy who's supposed to be him.
A photo strip of her and Jay Walker laughing, then making silly faces, then kissing. A Starfarer movie ticket with scribbles over it reading “Jay’s favourite.” Sticky notes with his name signed at the bottom. A picture of two hands intertwined. A piece of paper with a scrawled list of anniversaries: first date, first kiss, official getting together, something called a “Yin-Yang.” Receipts from dates. Love letters.
Then, below the rest of it, an old photograph that must've been taken at Christmas, but instead of being in a living room surrounded by ninja as he would have assumed, he, Nya, and two elderly people are sitting in front of a small tree that appears to be made of metal. They're all wearing knitted Santa hats and laughing about something Rogue is sure is stupid, and even as snow glimmers through the window, the entire room looks warm. Nya's head rests on his Jay Walker’s shoulder as the older woman passes him a gift. Her eyes are closed, but her expression is the softest he's ever seen it. He's not used to seeing her with her guard down.
“Those are your parents,” Nya says softly from behind him. Rogue didn't notice that she had gotten up. “Usually we all stayed here for Christmas and then visited our families after, but this was the year we…we...” she almost trails off, but catches Rogue's eyes, glinting red, burning into hers. “That was the year we got engaged. A lot of…other stuff…was happening at the same time, and we never got around to telling your parents, so I said we should go see them ourselves for the holidays. You said we could also go see mine too, but I didn't really get along with them yet, so we just went to see yours. I think we both liked it more than we would've if we'd gone to mine.” Nya looks as if she wants to say more about that Christmas, but ultimately chooses to allow him to respond.
Rogue decides that, as interesting as she is (especially compared to the other ninja) he doesn't really feel like getting into her familial trauma, and instead fixates on the other thing.
“Ah-ha!” He exclaims, spinning around. “If we're engaged, and you really know me, why aren't you wearing a ring?”
If she really was in love with this guy, and still looking for him after over 4 years, why would she take the ring off? Maybe for combat, sure, but they aren't in any danger. At least, the ninja don't think that they are.
Nya steps backwards as her face contorts with distress. “I…” she turns away from his gaze, “We don't have great experiences with weddings, Jay. There's something that we went through that only we remember. Only I remember, I guess. We were just kids, and this awful djinn used us…” her expression gets distant, but before Rogue can question her further, she snaps back to the present. “It doesn't matter. All that matters is that neither of us wanted rings, or even a traditional wedding. So you researched an older, more sacred tradition from ancient Ninjagoan culture. The Yin-Yang promise.”
She pulls out a thin chain with the lighter half of a taijitu dangling from the end from beneath her light blue pajamas. She eyes it fondly, lightly running her fingers over it. “Somewhere,” she whispers, “You've got one of these hanging around too.”
Rogue can only stare at the pendant. Truthfully, if he'd known that anything like that belonged to him a few weeks before now, he probably would have sold it. He is not going to tell her that. But there is something deep within that is telling him that he has seen this thing before, maybe even held it. He has never heard of a “Yin-Yang promise,” but the mere sound of it already puts him at more ease than all of the talk about weddings did.
The wretched violence of familiarity boils deep in his stomach, and he is almost sick with it. It doesn't help that he remembers hating being invited to his coworkers' weddings, and always felt a sense of unease whenever he walked into one—a feeling which always intensified whenever one of them would elbow him in jest and whisper that he'd be next. He'd just assumed he was afraid of commitment, and now he's supposed to believe that, in some other life, he had made a binding commitment more sacred than marriage?
He can't believe it. He won't believe it. Rogue is not the man that she insists he is, and he never will be. Rogue is the man who walked into her bedroom intending to find a way to kill her. Jay Walker would have tried to kiss her.
Jay Walker was eaten alive by a hell storm. Jay Walker disappeared into the light and was consumed by darkness. He couldn't simply accept that they were one and the same just because they were similar.
He tears his vision away from the pendant. “I don't commit to anything. Plus, there are rules about stuff like that. Pretty sure the Administration would have to put my relationship status in my file.” It's a bullshit excuse and he knows it, because he knows that the Administration didn't care to tell him anything real about himself, but he can't succumb to her manipulation. He has already been through this twice, and it has made him a psychotic, twisted variation of a man.
He doesn't know what he'll become if he falls for it again.
Nya pretends that the way he dismisses their entire engagement doesn't hurt, and glares at him. “Come on, Jay! You can't really believe that they would tell you anything true about yourself! You know that I'm right, you know that this,” she points at her bulletin board, “Is you! That,” she points at Mr. Cuddlywomp, “Is yours! FSM, even these,” she pulls at her plaid, rolled-up pajama pants, “Are yours!” she exhales deeply, allowing the anger to seep out of her. “You're everywhere, Jay. It kills me every second of every day. How can't you see it?”
It is, again, Rogue's turn to look away from her. The issue is not—and has never been—that he doesn't see it. The issue is that, unlike he did at the Administration or with Ras, he does see it. Blake and Ras had a blank canvas of himself to work with, and told him whatever they wanted because there was nothing else he could believe. But the ninja?
The ninja met him at his most wicked, his most twisted, and somehow made him see more of who he used to be without recalling a single memory. He feels almost as if he is where he is supposed to be, and it is exactly why he has to leave.
He scoffs dismissively. “I dunno, I mean, can’t you see how weak he looks here?” He points at the picture of Jay Walker with the other ninja. Rogue is much more muscular than this guy looks in his photos—courtesy of the office gym he killed time in when he felt, for some reason, like he needed to be training for something—and just a bit more tan because of the amount of time he spends outside while hunting. They could be brothers, maybe. He can't make himself believe that they're the the same guy. “Plus, I've heard all the stories you've told about him running away from danger. My whole life is danger. And all the lovey shit, that's not me at all. Your guy is just a scrawny little sap.”
Nya clenches her fists, and Rogue braces for a punch. Instead, she spits, “Don't talk about him—yourself—him, ugh, whatever! Don't talk like that! The Jay I know, the guy I love, is always underestimated, and always comes out stronger than any villain he ever faces. And even at that, his true strength doesn't come from his powers or some dumb muscles. None of our strength does. It comes from the people around us, Jay. The people that we love.” Her eyes shine with tears that she is obviously trying to hold back, and Rogue almost feels…bad.
Still, he doesn't miss a single beat. “Then you ninja seem to have a weird idea of what strength is. And I am not the guy you love.”
“You are a ninja, Jay!” She exclaims, distraught. “Again, how can't you see that yet?”
Rogue narrows his eyes and bursts, “Every single person I've met has claimed that there's a different thing I'm supposed to be! Am I just supposed to believe you just because you cried about it more?”
She grits her teeth and nearly snarls, poking him in the chest. “You are supposed to believe me because you promised me you would always be here. That was the whole fucking point of this, Jay,” she pulls at her pendant, “And if there is still a part of you left in there then so help me First Master I am going to get it back. Cole needs his best friend back. Ed and Edna deserve their son back. The others need their brother back. And I…well,” her voice drops. “You already know I need you. And you deserve to know who you used to be. Choosing to live the life you live now isn't a choice at all, Jay.”
Rogue doesn't know what to say to that. He thinks he likes who he is now, most of the time, but sometimes he wonders if there will ever be more to his life than this darkness, this destruction. Who is he without the next hunt, the next kill? What is he without the chase?
Well, he thinks in response, I suppose I'm Jay Walker.
And Jay Walker is loved. He thought that Nya just wanted him for herself the way that The Administration wanted Agent Walker, or Ras wanted the lightning ninja. He was just supposed to turn back into her submissive, docile boyfriend. But instead, she's saying he wants him to have the option to come back to himself, and not just for her. For everyone around him. And for himself. All he has ever wanted is to be able to choose who he gets to be, and she wants to give that to him.
Because. Jay. Walker. Is. Loved.
And Rogue is not.
When he still doesn't respond, Nya's arms come up to wrap around herself as her eyes glaze over with tears. “I have spent years missing you, and now that you're back, you're not even you. And somehow, it almost feels worse than you being gone,” she releases a shaky breath, “You deserve to know how amazing you were…Rogue. And if, after that, you decide that you still don't want to stay,” she uses the bases of her palms to wipe fat tears from her face, “Then at least that's a decision that you get to make.”
She is shaking harder than he's ever seen someone tremble. He would probably feel bad if his first instinct were to care more. Rather, he is thinking that this could be his moment. That perhaps tonight is supposed to be the night he finishes them all off.
It strikes him again that he's never seen her as vulnerable as she does in the photo with Jay Walker because she never is vulnerable without him. And she thinks that he is Jay Walker, which means...
He can't kill Nya with combat, poison, or lightning, because he's the key to getting her guard down enough to die.
She is fully crying now, not sobbing, but visibly upset enough that she cannot hide it. She is distracted, wholly exposed.
He's in the perfect position. He could extend a hand right now, hover it over her chest, deliver a perfectly executed shot—she’d be dead in seconds. Then, he'll have to rapidly do the same to the others and disappear to find his real target out in the Wyldness. It wouldn't be difficult.
But he's looking back at her in the picture, and he's looking at her now, and the first thing that he thinks of is not the efficiency of this potential kill. It is that he wants the softness to return to her face and smoothen out the deep creases of grief.
He wants to see her happy, not dead.
Rogue scratches the back of his head. He doesn't know what he's feeling, but it clashes against the wickedness brewing within him. For the first time since it happened, he regrets shattering his goodness. He wants to feel this emotion in full. He wants to feel like a real person. He wants to feel like Jay Walker.
“I—” he starts. He has no idea where he plans to go with it. Without knowing how, she has rendered him entirely speechless.
Nya disrupts him before he can make matters any worse. “Okay, you got your tour. I think you should go try and get some sleep,” she sniffles, nodding towards the door while she avoids his gaze. He cannot believe that, after all he's put her through, she is still being decent to him when he knows that she is full of fire. Jay Walker must've been some guy to deserve her, he thinks. He's glad to get to wear his face for a while.
Lightning sparks between Rogue’s fingers as they twitch, positively vibrating as if they want to move, to reach out, to touch her.
He shoves his hands into his pockets and allows himself to be walked to the door.
Before he can go back to the living room, he makes an attempt at decency. “...Goodnight,” he murmurs.
“Get off that leg,” is all she says in response.
He watches her disappear back into her bedroom, shoulders still trembling, and finds it difficult to move his feet.
In the morning, he knows that Kai and Lloyd will be raving about how they've just gotten the best sleep they have in years. Cole will tiredly wander into the kitchen without a clue of what Rogue was planning. The kids will wander in for breakfast and ignore him as he sits on the couch. Nya will emerge from her room with puffy eyes and wish everyone but him a good morning. And all the while, Rogue will say nothing.
But now, as the moonlight streams through the monastery's windows, he is alone in the hallway of what is supposedly his home. He is a killer amongst heroes, a destroyer amongst Ninjago's salvation. Maybe, he should be the one to leave instead of trying to get rid of them. They have scorned him, scammed him, but they might not have to die for it. Maybe Rogue can be a little bit more like Jay Walker and run away.
He takes the stopper out of the space between Cole's door and the wall.
Or maybe he'll try again another night.