Merry Christmas, everyone! Hope you had a wonderful day! This may or may not be my last fic of the year... though I'm pretty sure there's one more oneshot in progress... but if I don't see you all again till the end of the month, Happy New Years!


Jay sat across the room on the floor, one leg up to support his phone. Normally, Cole would have been asleep on the couch, but the master of earth had opted to hideaway in his room with the door closed.

He was sprawled on the bed, staring at the ceiling feeling this emptiness inside.

He couldn't believe that out everyone on the team he just had to be stuck with Jay. Not that he was complaining or anything, but everytime Cole fought to think of a gift, the gift would always come back around to smack him in the face and he would feel like it simply wasn't enough.

After all…

What do you get your best friend?

Desperate to relieve himself, he snapped on his headphones and turned up the music, blocking out any outside noise. His eyes drifted to a close as he let himself get carried away in the music.

"Needless to say… hm, hm, hm, hm…"

Cole continued to hum, feeling his body relax.

Needless to say, he really should have started gift shopping, but Jay insisted on staying in the apartment for the next several hours to avoid running into the others.

"She was all bad-bad, hm, hm, hm…"

Two hours had already passed since Jay had said that and Cole was beginning to wonder when, or if, they'd actually leave the apartment at all. Besides, there were a decent amount of good retail stores in Ninjago City, so the chances of running into one of the team were pretty slim. Especially with all the late Christmas shopping going on.

As if on cue, a knock sounded from the door.

However, Cole didn't hear it because of how loudly his music was playing, and only continued to stare fixed at the wall.

After a couple extra tries of knocking, Jay burst into the room, sweeping it for Cole. When he found his friend lying on the bed with his headphones on and still humming, Jay jumped.

Startled by the sudden movement on the bed, Cole scrambled into a sitting position.

"Jay! What the heck?"

"Sup, Cole?"

Cole's eyes narrowed and he slid his headphones off his head. "What do you want?"

"I was thinking we could finally do some shopping? I don't know how long ago it was since I said to wait a while, but it feels very long ago and it's like, almost four o'clock right now. So that's not fun." Jay hopped off the bed, gesturing for Cole to follow.

"C'mon, dude! I wanna be back in time for dinner!"

Cole blinked. What? "Are we having dinner at Lloyd's or something? I don't get it…"

"No, silly! I just meant I didn't want to be back so late. Now let's go."


The shopping was tedious.

Cole was struggling more than Jay was to find the perfect gift. The master of lightning seemed to be handling things in a breeze, though he couldn't help but feel like something was slightly off about Jay's shopping. He seemed rather tense and a little agitated. Why? He didn't know. But what he did know was that he had nothing.

He couldn't believe how hard it was! It should have been simple. Pick a name, know that person, know their gift.

But Jay, Jay was something different. If he wasn't planning on making his gift extra super special then, he was now.

"So I've got a couple Starfarer merch, though I'm not quite sure if Lloyd's even still into that," Jay fumbled for the gift card under his many boxes of cookies, "and a gift card?"

He sighed, "What have you got?" Jay paused when he noticed Cole's empty hands. "Dude, your person is going to be so disappointed once they find out you have nothing."

Cole had to admit that stung a little with the irony that his person was Jay. But what did Jay know? Nothing. Precisely.

Cole huffed, chancing a quick glance over Jay's full figure.

He noted how the blue ninja was clothed in his Christmas sweater from last year. The one his mom had knitted, one for each ninja. Then came down to Jay's pants, which, surprisingly weren't much since Jay had merely slipped into a pair of black sweatpants.

His freckles were slightly faded under the store light, but Cole knew that in the dim lighting of their apartment and the Bounty that the boy's freckles were prominent and decorated his entire face from left to right. Then there were his eyes.

There was one time when Cole was given the chance to stare longingly at them, at that time realizing how blue and how brilliant they really were.

But, it felt like something was missing from his attire…

"Earth to Cole?" Jay's voice rang loud and clear in his head, pulling him back to the present. "We've been here for over an hour and it's getting really late. Can we leave yet?"

Cole twisted his nose. "What?"

"We've been here, for over an hour. Let's. Go."

Cole shook his head. Had it really been that long? His eyes widened when he realized how intensely and all up in his face Jay was being.

"Okay, just give me a second. I'll meet you up front."

With a pout, Jay gathered his things and started for the front of the store.

Cole closed his eyes, seeing Jay's cheerful image flash within his mind once again. With a snap of his fingers, he got it.

A tremendous wave of joy washed over him and with a whopping cheer, he sprinted for the men's clothes, eyes hungry for his prize.


When the day finally came to trade gifts, no one was ready. Well, everyone but Cole that was. For once, Cole felt pretty proud of what he managed to find for the blue ninja. The only problem was the color, but Cole found an excuse around it.

They were all gathered in Kai and Nya's apartment this time, each one holding a plain brown bag for their presents with a single name tag wrapped around the handle for identification.

Lloyd was nervous.

It took him awhile to find something after he and Zane had left the store. Something about what Zane had said about making a gift for Kai stuck with him. And Lloyd did just that.

He made something.

Or at least tried to.

Zane, on the other hand, somehow managed to gather a gruesome number of photos of the team from way back and weaved them into his scrapbook of memories for Kai.

Meanwhile, Nya was panicking. She hadn't found the perfect gift for Cole.

Just when she found something extraordinary, extraordinary being a crazy some random passerby happened to get to it first and snatch the last one off the shelf.

Nya crumpled under the pressure. She was so close to gaining the best gift she could think of but it just had to slip out of her hands.

"Everyone had fun?" Lloyd asked, looking to get feedback on his secret santa idea this year.

There were a couple nods and yeses and a couple moans and groans. Lloyd figured it was because some people didn't get who they had hoped for. That and the fact that it felt merely impossible to find something special for that one person.

"When are we going to trade gifts?" Kai asked as he came out of the kitchen holding a plate of gooey chocolate chip cookies.

"How about we do it right now?" Lloyd suggested, stumbling past the couch and table and to the bags. "Alright," Lloyd bent down and picked up the first two bags, "Nya, Zane, these ones are yours."

As Zane and Nya went to recieve their gifts, Lloyd moved to the next two. "Jay and Kai…" finally, "Cole."

It wasn't long before everyone had torn their gifts open, either eyeing them suspiciously, admiring the thoughtfulness, or sweeping the circle for their secret santa.

Kai spoke first, jumping to his feet as he held up his scrapbook. "Okay, who gave me this?"

The tone of the question sounded a bit too harsh, like Kai was upset about it, and he winced when he registered his own question and the harshness of his voice. "Seriously, who gave me this? It's amazing!"

Right on cue, Zane raised his hand shyly, holding Kai's present to him in his hand. "Zane, I knew it, buddy!"

And within a split of a second, Kai was all over Zane, hugging him like there was no tomorrow. "Oh! That's funny, ain't it?" He realized, pointing at the mp3 player.

"Hah, why yes." Zane lifted the box, examining it. "It is a music player?"

"Exactly!" Kai shouted a little too excitingly. "Er, I figured you could, I dunno, maybe find some way to rewire it and input it into your system so that you have your own personal, built-in, music player."

Zane chuckled, smiling. "I very much like it, Kai. Thank you."

From the other edge of the circle, Nya sat and scoffed, arms folded across her chest. "They sure found each other the perfect gifts," Nya murmured, eyes falling to the floor.

Lloyd sat down beside her, kicking his knees up. "How'd you like your gift?"

"It was you, wasn't it?" She pried, holding back a grin.

"Maybe," Lloyd teased, "Sorry it isn't that great. I tried, but gosh, it was so hard, Nya! At first I was thinking of-"

"Lloyd, shut up, dude. I love it! It's the thought that counts, right?" Nya punched him lightly in the shoulder, laughing. She held up her new penguin toy and beamed, "Besides, he's really cute. I think I'll name him Luh-Lloyd."

"Gosh, what a jerk!" Lloyd cried, pointing an accusing finger at Luh-Lloyd. "You stole my name!"

Nya wrinkled her brow, hissing. "Hardly, he merely took your name, then changed it up a bit. Luh-Lloyd is so much different than Lloyd. So what did you get?"

"Some Starfarer stuff and a gift card. I'm pretty sure it was from Jay." Lloyd turned the gift card over and not to his surprise, the name was written in big letters on the back. "Yup, Jay."

Before Nya could say anymore, Cole crept up from behind. "Hey, Nya."

The master of water was shocked. How did he know it was her? She was hesitant to turn around at first, but in the end she did and came face to face with him.

"Thanks for the speaker."

"It's lame," she blurted unknowingly.

Cole's eyes grew large. "It's really cool, actually." He patted her on the back. "Now I have another thing to annoy Jay with. Hm?"

Nya couldn't help but laugh quietly.

The mini speaker she had bought for Cole, while it looked pretty sad because of how small it was, turned out to be a great gift indeed. She could only imagine Cole hiding it in one of the drawers, or behind Jay's bed, and turning up the music to the max.

Meanwhile, Jay was leaning against the wall, holding Cole's gift in his lap, staring down at it. He wasn't sure what he was trying to accomplish by simply looking at it, but maybe if he looked long enough, his secret santa would slide down beside him and admit it was a cozy, cute, gift.

As Cole was having a little conversation with Nya and Lloyd, his eyes drifted over to Jay, hoping to see his reaction to the gift. What he was not hoping to see, was the way Jay was intently gazing down at it.

It struck him curious as to why Jay was doing so, and he crept on over, taking his mini speaker with him.

"Hey, there, Sparkplug."

Jay knitted his brows together, eyes still focused on the scarf in his lap. Cole?

He smacked his lips, daing to look to his best friend. "I have one question: why is it orange?"

"Oh, that,"

It was the only color they had left, was what Cole wanted to say, but instead, what came out was, "Blue and orange. They compliment each other. Just like the two of us do."

"Wow," Jay said softly and it came out like a whisper.

"It's so soft! And, and it's so warm and fuzzy!' Jay's hands fumbled for the fabric and he shoved it in Cole's face, grinning. The second Cole had pushed the scarf away, Jay had tackled him into a hug.

Turns out he did find the right gift.

And while it wasn't anything fancy or worth much, Jay liked it. A lot.

A soft murmur could be heard as Jay turned his face into Cole's chest.

"Thank you."