"Dad never talked about her. I know she stabbed him and that's why they divorced, but he never talked about her. I didn't even know her name until this afternoon," Cole said as he sat down. He had no idea what he was sitting on, since the thick fog came up to his chest, but he chose to assume it was ground.

"Well, the stabbing was just the straw that broke the camel's back," Anna said, sitting down next to him.

"How long will I be stuck here?"

"Until you give up and go with me or soldier up and go back to Ninjago."

"Great," Cole mumbled.

"What is it?"

"I don't know if I want to go back. Because if I go back, then I have to talk to Dad about everything. And if I do that, I feel like we'll go back to not talking to each other."

"Cole…"

"I fessed up to everything I did. I told him I ran away from that torture chamber- I mean school- he sent me to. I told him I went to work with you most days. I thought we were going to try being honest with each other, like you always wanted. I guess I was wrong about him changing."

"He was just trying to protect you, Cole."

"I don't need protecting."

"You're in limbo!"

Cole looked at Anna, not sure what to say. As usual, she was right. He sighed and buried his face in his arms.

"How old are you now?" Anna asked a moment later.

"I'm twenty."

"Twenty? No. You can't be twenty. I refuse to believe that. Just the other day, you were yay high, climbing up the refrigerator to reach the cookie jar. Oh. You were lucky you were a cute lad."

"Anna…" Cole knew she was setting up to relive embarrassing moments, and he was glad there wasn't anyone around to hear.

"I remember when I first met you. Your mother was my best friend when we were kids. After graduation, we made sure to keep in touch. Which wasn't easy, since I went into the military and she got a job at a concert hall. But we kept in touch. I was her maid of honor at the wedding. She made me wear this super frilly floor-length pink dress that had puffed sleeves."

"You wore a dress?" Cole laughed. He had only seen Anna wear a dress once in his life: at her wedding, and he knew she hated every minute she was in the thing.

"I did. It was hideous. Anyway, a year or so after the wedding, I hear that Morgen had given birth to a little boy. I was a major at the time, so I went to my colonel and secured leave for the next weekend to come visit. Before I could visit, the police came to me and asked me if I knew where Morgen was. I said, 'no, I haven't seen her in months. I was going to see her this coming weekend.' They told me that she tried to kill you and she stabbed Lou. I was like, 'what? Morgen? No, she wouldn't do anything like that. Morgen couldn't hurt a fly.' I told my colonel that I was leaving the next day instead of on Friday."

"And he just let you?" Cole knew the military were real sticklers when it came to things like official leave. He also knew that the higher your rank, the more weight you could pull when requesting something. But he didn't think a major had enough rank to pull a stunt like that. Then again, Anna could be extremely intimidating when she wanted to be.

"I said if he needed to court-martial me, then to go ahead, but I was going to find out what happened. I get to St. Albert's Hospital, and Lou is talking with a divorce lawyer. He gave me a brief rundown on what happened, then I went to the NICU to see you. They let me hold you and feed you a bottle. You were so tiny, and your little arm was broken."

"My arm was broken?"

"Yes, and I felt so sorry for you. You were adorable. You had a little bit of black fuzz for hair, and you looked at me with those big eyes, and my heart just melted." Anna said a few more sentences about how adorable baby Cole was, but her squealing combined with her Celtic accent made them indistinguishable.

"You're such a girl sometimes. Also, my arm was broken?" Cole repeated once Anna stopped making noise.

"Yes. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I know your mother caused it. Anyway, I felt sorry for you and your father, and his parents weren't helping out as much as they were going, 'Lucien, I told you that woman would bring you nothing but trouble.' I helped out by running some errands, and then I had to convince Matt that no, Lou could not go on tour just then as he was just stabbed by his wife and became a single parent, so maybe it would be a good idea to cancel the tour outright while Lou got his life back together."

"… Yeah, that sounds like Matt."

"When your father was on his feet again, he took me out to dinner to thank me for helping out with you. He asked me on more dates, which mostly ended with him passed out on the couch while I took care of you. Three years later, I'm walking down the aisle to him."

"And we moved onto the base," Cole groaned. He hated life on the military base, and he was thrilled when Anna retired and they moved to Ninjago City when he was six.

"It wasn't all bad. If I flew with my squadron at an event, we got free tickets so you and your father could watch me in action."

"I was picked on and beat up by the other kids, and their moms did nothing to stop them because they were too busy talking about me. Billy Sykes was the worst of them."

"I know, Commander Sykes and I had words more than once because of the two of you. It was good that I outranked him."

"I would love to look Billy Sykes in the eye right now, let him see what the runt can do," Cole muttered to himself.

"Violence is not always the answer. Your mother acted out in violence and ended up on the Most Wanted list."

"Seriously?"

" Yes. Your father, on the other hand, has always acted in your best interest. He demanded custody of you, which the judge immediately granted. It was his idea to move to the base, since he knew Morgen was still out there. A couple times, she actually did send some goons to scope out the place, and they were dumb enough to try and break onto the base. Your real mother is unpredictable, and your father has always done what he could to keep you from her grasp, because no one knew what she was capable of. Speaking of, if she hooked you up to a machine and shocked you the way you said she did, then clearly she had some help."