It was a quiet and peaceful autumn day in Ninjago. The sun was setting, the sky was turning beautiful colors, and there was a cool breeze as two middle aged men walked side by side, the yellow, orange, anx red leaves crunching under their feet. One was fixing his brown hair, trying to look nice before reaching the other's home, just in case he lived with someone.

"Are you sure it's fine I can stay here? I could probably reach my apartment before it's too la-"

"Don't be silly, it's no problem Dareth. I got enough room..." Ronin trailed off as he reached the front porch of his home. Dareth examined the yard. It was small and the lawn looked like it hasn't been mowed for quite some time. The house was also small, nothing like he has seen in the city. He was confused as why Ronin had such a small house, since he has most likely been getting some of the profit off of the tea shop that Wu once owned and the coffee shop across the street.

"This is the right house... right?" Dareth asked as Ronin pulled out a key and put it into the front door lock. Ronin slowly nodded, unlocking and opening the front door.

"I know, not much, but it's home..." he muttered, motioning Dareth inside. Immediately, three small children rushed over to the two as soon as they took a step inside. All three surrounded Ronin and formed a group hug. At this time, Dareth saw that the group of children consisted of one girl and two boys. From what he could tell, the boys looked older and taller than the girl, possibly by two years. However, all three looked under the age of ten at least.

"Welcome home Papa!" The young girl exclaimed, pulling away from the hug and playing with her long brownish ginger braid. Her eyes resembled Ronin's dark brown eyes, yet her face resembled nothing like Ronin. She wore a cute set of pastel pink pajamas that seemed a bit dirty with dirt and mud, and the pants seemed a bit torn near her bare feet. The two other boys also were in the same condition, but one's sorta short brown hair, the same color as Dareth's hair, was quite messy, as if he just got electrocuted in a cartoon, and the other's ginger hair was pulled back into a bun. Both boys resembled Ronin in some way, the brown haired boy has his facial structure and eyes. The ginger haired boy seemed to have similar hair, but had hazel eyes, unlike Ronin and the other two kids. From what the girl said and how similar the kids were to Ronin, Dareth figured out who they were...

"You have... kids?" He asked, turning to Ronin, who just picked up the girl and was talking to her in a calm and gentle voice.

"Did you and the boys go outside and play today? Y'all got so dirty, my goodness... no way to look in front of a guest..." he set the girl down and turned to the other two boys, still kneeling next to the girl. "...go get yourself's cleaned up before dinner. You guys need to look nice because we're having a special dinner tonight." A gentle smile smiled formed on Ronin's face as the kids nodded.

"Yes dad..." the boys mumbled in unison. They walked away, whispering to each other.

"Yes Papa!" The girl responded, clearly more excited than her brothers. She snatched Ronin's hat before following her brothers. This left the two adults to talk. Ronin sighed happily as he got up, still smiling. It was almost like Dareth was looking at a totally different man.

"So... those are your kids?" Dareth restated his question, getting a nod as a response.

"They're quite adorable." Dareth said, following Ronin into the kitchen.

"Yeah, they are... Jasmine, Edward, and Aaron. Edward, or Eddie, is the one with the manbun. My boy A-A-Ron is the one with brown hair. The boys are supposed to be twins, but didn't come out identical like we thought. As you can tell, Jasmine is the youngest by two years. My sweet lil' 5 year old..." Ronin rambled on about the three kids as he started to cook some dinner. Dareth nodded and listened, but still caught at the 'didn't come out identical like we thought'. Although, once Ronin seemed to be at a stopping point, the old Dojo masted decided to finally ask.

"So, um, Ronin, question. You said how 'we' thought whatever. What did you mean by 'we'?" There wasn't an immediate response. Ronin remained silent for a minute before finally thinking of an answer. He placed a bunch of noodles into a pot of boiling water before answering.

"I... um... didn't have these kids all by myself of course... I used to have a wife..." He finally responded with a sad and quiet tone. He stared at the pot of noodles, not knowing what else to say.

"Used to have... Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry... I didn't know you were once married..." Dareth hesitantly replied, rubbing one of his sort of chubby arms. He heard a sniffle come from Ronin, but he couldn't tell if he was actually crying or not.

"It's fine... I'm not one who tells my life story... but she was a wonderful woman..." Ronin said before his children crashed into the kitchen, marveled by the pot of noodles on the stove.

"Oh, we're finally having something other than microwave dinner." Eddie said with a bit more enthusiasm in his voice than when he went to wash up with his two other siblings. With that in mind, Dareth noticed the kids were all cleaned up and were in comfy looking, but oversized, pajamas. However, hair was neater and there was no dirt or mud what so ever.

"Go sit down you three, dinner's almost done. A-A-Ron, can you set up the table? Eddie, get the drinks. Dareth, we can talk later." Ronin told the kids, and they immediately obeyed. They reminded Dareth a bit like some of the kids at his Dojo, when they actually chose to listen to him.

Once the noodles were done and the table was set, everyone sat in one of six wooden chairs at the wooden table. Dareth sat silently as Eddie filled each blue plastic cup with water and Ronin put noodles into the matching plastic bowl, which sat upon a plastic blue plate. The bowl, plate, and cups looked like they came in a set that parents could buy for their kids, however the forks, spoons, and butter knifes were similar to the silver ones that Dareth has back at his apartment.

"The plastic stuff is because I don't want them to break the few nice plates that we have, but the nice ones aren't washed..." Ronin told Dareth as he passed by, sitting down in the seat next to him. Everyone ate silently until Ronin finally asked the kids a question.

"So... how was Mrs. Goodwin? What did you guys do with her? By the way, she's our neighbor." Ronin whispered the last sentence to Dareth. All three kids sighed, looking at one another. They were waiting for one of them to gain the courage to talk.

"Bad. I hate her so much..." Aaron mumbled, taking a sip of water. Jasmine and Eddie nodded.

"Yeah! She was so strict! She made us go to school again yesterday! I hated it so much, I need a year break from it. Plus, she got so mad and made us go to our rooms after we came inside from playing out back. It's not our fault that there was mud on the ground and we slip and fall. Then-" Ronin raised his hand, stopping Eddie from rambling on.

"She was such an asshole..." Jasmine muttered, making everyone stare at her with a surprised look.

"Sweetheart, where did you hear that word?" Ronin calmly asked. Jasmine twisted a strand of her now wet hair, hesitant to answer.

"From you...and some people at school..." she said quietly, her gaze on her food instead of her father's eyes.

"Jasmine, look at me when speaking to me..." Willow immediately looked up, her eyes wide. She was biting her lip. "...And, you know words like that are not allowed in this hou-"

"But you talk that way. We heard you saying worsd stuff than that the other day." Eddie interrupted, getting worried looks from his siblings. Ronin began to shake his head, and Dareth began to wonder what was about to happen. He knew Eddie was speaking the truth. Ronin didn't have much of a filter when he was with Dareth and the ninja.

"You know you shouldn't interrupt people, especially anyone in this house. Now, I only talk like that in the house when I'm really angry..." Ronin began to say, before Dareth said something.

"As Jay once said, swearing is a sign of weak verbal skills." The three kids looked at Dareth with strange looks. They sat and stared at him silently until Aaron said something.

"Huh, he actually talks." Ronin chuckled and nodded.

"Yeah, he does. I nearly forgot to introduce him to you three. This is Dareth, a person I know from New Ninjago City." The kids' faces lit up with enlightenment.

"Woah... like from the New Ninjago City. That's so cool!" Eddie exclaimed, raising his arms in the air and nearly knocking his cup of water over. Both Dareth and Ronin nodded.

"Oh my first spinjiztu master that's so awesome! Is the city really big? Is it really filled with technological stuff? Is Cyrus Borg nice? Do you know the ninja?" Eddie began spitting out a million questions at once, making Dareth chuckle a bit.

"Woah, one question at a time. But, the city is quite big. It is filled with tech stuff. I haven't really got a chance to meet Borg, but the ninja say he's chill. And finally, I do know the ninja. I actually helped them on a couple missions." Dareth answered a few questions that he actually heard. At that moment, Jasmine's face lit up even more.

"Wait, you're the Dareth! The one who took that one helmet... the um..."

"Helmet of Shadows..." Aaron whispered to Jasmine.

"Yeah, Helmet of Shadows! The one that took control of the Stone Army!" Dareth chuckled, being quite flattered from the recognition.

"Well, I'm flattered." He responded, noticing from the corner of his eye that Ronin was smiling a bit as he silently listened to the conversation. For the rest of the meal, the kids asked Dareth questions about the Helmet of Shadows, the ninja, and other missions that Dareth was present for. Unfortunately, the conversion ended once everyone was full or done with their dinner.

"Alright kiddos, time for bed." Ronin told the three children, getting groans as a response. The kids went upstairs and Ronin followed, leaving Dareth alone down in the empty dining room. Dareth decided to clean up the table, setting all the plates, bowls, cups, and silverware in the sink. Once done with that, he explored the living room.

It wasn't that big. It had a old looking couch and a small tv. Along the wall was a fireplace that held a couple picture frames. The shelve that had the frames was quite dusty, but that didn't bother Dareth at the moment. His attention was on the pictures. There was one with a younger looking Ronin with his family, then another where it looked like he was apart of some sort of armed force. In both pictures, Ronin seemed like he wasn't that happy. He had what seemed to be a forced smile.

Another frame held a wedding picture. Within the picture, it had the young Ronin locking lips with a woman with a similar colored hair as Dareth, but it was in braid with a flower crown. Her white wedding dress was quite beautiful, with long sleeves that had a sort of flower design and a dress that seemed to fit her nearly slim figure, yet there seemed to be a slight baby bump from what Dareth could see. In the next picture, it looked like a baby shower. Within this photo, he could see both Ronin and the woman from the wedding photo was enjoying themselves. Big smiles were plastered on their faces as they revealed the genders of their twins, both being boys. In the next picture was in the hospital. A baby Aaron and baby Eddie were in the arms of a clearly tired woman. Dareth was guessing Ronin was taking the photo this time. The next two were the same as the last two, except the gender was revealed to be a girl, there was a girl in the woman's arms, and a two year old Eddie and Aaron appeared in the photos. A small smile was on Dareth's face, a warm feeling was in his heart from seeing the family being happy together. The smile and warm feeling soon disappeared however. His eyes glaced at the last and final picture frame, which held a photo of Ronin in front of his first shop in Stixx, now with his recognizable fake smile. The picture was in black and white, and looked like it was cut out of a newspaper.

"I know... those two years with her was the best two years of my life..." Dareth jumped from the the monotoned voice he just heard. He turned to see Ronin. The smile that he saw was now replaced with a frown, and his eyes looked empty. A sigh escaped Ronin's lips as he walked over to the photos, his eyes locked on the wedding photo.

"She felt like my soulmate... she was perfect... she still had her flaws, but she was like a gift from the gods... she was my key to happiness..." Ronin muttered, his hand wrapped around the dusty wooden picture frame. Another sigh escaped his lips.

"She was everything to you... wasn't she..." Ronin nodded, taking a deep breath.

"If you don't mind..." Dareth trailed off. Ronin looked up from the photo, motioning for Dareth to finish.

"...I'm interested in hearing more about her..."

A/N: Wooooooo, I'm actually proud of this. So, if you Ninjago fans don't know, there was a little thing on Twitter where Tommy Andreason said they were considering on making Ronin have kids and a wife. So yeah, that was a perfect fanfic opportunity tbh.